Ambitious, perspicacious, and humane.
Nathan’s novel begins as the story of a semicloseted gay screenwriter in 1950s Hollywood, but the scope grows to encompass issues of identity, social mores, and the survival of humankind.
The dense first 100 pages recount a 1956 turning point in George Curtis’ life. Aware of his otherness, the gay, Hungarian-born Jewish émigré tries to keep a low profile, away from the Hollywood limelight. Then the Hungarian uprising against the USSR compels him to write a serious political/philosophical essay. Leaving his studio job scripting B movies, he takes refuge at the glamorous mansion of a married but sexually predatory pair of movie stars. George’s sardonic wit—tinged with nostalgia, loneliness, and loss—sets a moody noir tone as drugs, sex, and Cold War paranoia of nuclear dimensions rock his previously buttoned-up life. Suddenly the narration shifts to New York City in 1944. Sixteen-year-old George arrives as a parentless refugee. The roots of his adult tendencies—his capacity to reinvent himself as needed, the double life he maintains as a homosexual, his fear of his capacity for deep affection, his (or the author’s) tendency to pontificate about concepts like the ethics of destruction—become evident, and readers realize with surprise that the George who was so apparently jaded in California was not yet 30 years old. Poor and uneducated, adolescent George thrusts himself into Manhattan’s bohemian world of artists and writers. He thrives until a combination of misfortunes, including a tragic love affair, forces his escape to California. Now hopscotching past California, the narration picks up in late-20th-century Paris, where 40-year-old George has moved and, for a while, achieved a satisfying life. Though George struggles as a gay man and an immigrant, the message here is that the fear of loneliness and annihilation are universal and existential while happiness and love, however fleeting, are available to all.
Ambitious, perspicacious, and humane.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781640096240
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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