A madcap black comedy about family ties, real estate, and long-buried secrets.
Quirky brothers battle a mobster over the future of their family’s hotel in 1950s Los Angeles in Haddad’s novel.
The tightknit but contentious Shapiro family has been operating the small Paradise Palms hotel for decades. The property is prime Hollywood real estate, but the hotel business has fallen on hard times. The older sons—responsible David, finance whiz Leo, and stylish Aaron—plan to modernize to attract a new, wealthier clientele. When they suggest putting up a trendy new neon sign, their elderly father, Max, tells them he’s already arranged to have it done for free by Vance “Red” Gordo, a shady mobster who owes Max a favor. As the story goes on, the brothers desperately try to rein in and protect the increasingly erratic Max while clashing with the brutish Red; Max’s greedy, much younger companion, Kitty; and the brothers’ younger, dissolute sibling, Rudy. The plot springs one surprise after another as it switches between fast-moving, present-day action and scenes from the past that illuminate the Shapiros’ complicated relationships and personalities. Tough women, bumbling villains, government bureaucrats, naïve tourists, the Palms’ loyal staff members, and a trio of eccentric long-term residents rounds out the cast. The action features extortion, violence, gambling, arson, murder, and shocking revelations—as well as reunions, romances, weddings, births, and funerals. The novel is rich in period detail, from the Sputnik launch to the Howdy Doody TV series’ finale, as well as aspects of car culture, the freeway system, fashion, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The writing is vividly descriptive, snarky, and funny, but it doesn’t shy away from engaging with serious issues, such as homophobia, racism, and police corruption. Haddad’s background as an Emmy-nominated TV writer and producer is obvious, as is his deep affection for the city of Los Angeles and its history.
A madcap black comedy about family ties, real estate, and long-buried secrets.Pub Date: July 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68-433720-0
Page Count: 295
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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