An unfocused tale of Vietnam War–era family dysfunction that’s rich in historical realism.
Debut author Flores’ literary novel follows bizarre family troubles in a small Southern California town.
Welcome to Clarktown, California. Clarktown is located in Allen County, a place that “was created in the nineteenth century by the shear will, sweat and blood of the farmers, ranchers, and working families.” It is the 1960s, and the war in Vietnam is getting increasingly unpopular stateside. Veterans are returning from their time in combat in bad shape. Some are addicted to heroin, while others, like Matt Bradley, carry physical and emotional scars. Although Matt has managed to put his military training to use in civilian life advising police officers, his past still haunts him. Samuel Mendoza’s older brother Curtis “Curt” Mendoza served as a Green Beret. Once Curt is discharged from the Army, he winds up in all sorts of trouble, such as fighting and drug smuggling. Things go from bad to worse for Curt when he is accused of murder. It doesn’t help that local law enforcement is not exactly on the up and up. Sheriff Robert “Big Bob” Johnson seems keen on getting away with whatever might earn him a quick buck. His hobbies include quoting John Wayne movies and dealing in illicit human body parts. Big Bob believes Curt has information that could be useful, so he is hellbent on making Curt’s time behind bars as uncomfortable as possible. Lucky for Curt, his brother Hank is an Ivy League grad and lawyer who comes home from Boston to help with his case. Curt also has on his side local hippie attorney Robert “Bob” Stein. Bob and Hank may be sharp, but they have their work cut out for them.
Along with Curt’s legal situation, the narrative weaves in plenty of vivid period details of the 1960s. Baseball is well represented (snippets of Sandy Koufax’s career are mentioned throughout), as is the teen music scene: As one kid puts it, “I’m already tired of The Beatles…the Stones; that’s where it’s at, man.” Such aspects ground the story in a specific time and place, and the prose progresses in a breezy, conversational tone. The narrator explains complicated situations in a plain, matter-of-fact style: a good example is his description of his brother’s odd behavior upon his return from Vietnam (Curt seemed to be “nowhere and everywhere.”) The author also gives extensive background info on both major and minor characters. The reader learns everything from what car Stein drives to the special dish created in his honor at his landlord’s Mexican restaurant with kosher carne asida. The attorney describes “Combination Plate No. 7, The Stein Plate” as having “some heavy Old Testament vibe, and damn fucking good.” Such attention to detail enhances the main characters, although in the case of more peripheral characters, the detailed descriptions seem gratuitous. The question of whether Curt killed a man or not isn’t quite as suspenseful as one might expect. Despite such distractions, as the narrative centers on Curt’s trial it raises interesting questions about everything from pleas of insanity to the vagaries of small-town justice.
An unfocused tale of Vietnam War–era family dysfunction that’s rich in historical realism.Pub Date: March 9, 2023
ISBN: 9798363956645
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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