A haunting, complex look at love, gay history, and the passage of time.
In Horrigan’s novel, a gay academic reflects on past and present relationships.
In New York City, professor and author James Fitzgerald has just had a successful reading from his latest novel, American Scholar. Then the sister of Gregory Lenda, a long-ago ex—to whom James dedicated his book—shows up, throwing him off-kilter and into reminiscence. The narrative alternates between James’ reflective roaming across the city in present-day 2016 and his forays into academia and gay culture in 1987. Eighties-era James, who goes by “Jimmy,” meets the charismatic Gregory at a gay men’s study group; the two quickly develop a strong connection and start dating. The naïve Jimmy struggles to navigate Gregory’s history of mental illness, his own feelings about sex, and his dissertation on (real-life) early-20th-century critic F.O. Matthiessen, a closeted gay man. In the present, James reflects on tension with his husband, Fran; visits his younger boyfriend, Snyder; and stops by Gregory’s old house in midtown Manhattan. The book has a pensive, dreamlike quality to it; the flashbacks will feel natural to anyone who’s taken similar long evening walks. But there’s also a captivating intensity throughout, from Gregory’s dark, urgent personality to the no-punches-pulled depiction of the effects of HIV and AIDS on the gay community in the late ’80s. James’ other relationships are well limned, including those with college friends and fellow study-group members. Both Horrigan and his protagonist are literature professors with Columbia doctorates, and this sometimes breeds dry, academic passages. Still, it’s intriguing to follow Jimmy’s fascination with Matthiessen, whose life serves as a historical parallel to aspects of Jimmy and Gregory’s relationship. Above all, readers will recognize the ache of the absence of a great love: After considering Virginia Woolf’s assertion that life is “a procession of shadows,” James thinks, “He wanted to speak about ghosts. Shades. Shadows. Hauntings. (Was that just another way of saying, he wanted to write about Gregory?)”
A haunting, complex look at love, gay history, and the passage of time.Pub Date: March 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781590217368
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Lethe Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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