An exquisite collection that is candid, compassionate, and emotionally complex.
This debut collection limns the inner lives of women who have just become, will soon be, decline to be, or long to be mothers.
“You can’t know the joy until—,” says the teary-eyed mother of a woman who has just announced that she does not intend to have children, in an exchange tucked into “Grow Your Eyelashes,” the opening story of Rosenwaike’s empathetic collection. “You just can’t know it.” To this, the daughter replies, “Look how happy I’m making you.” Ultimately, the young woman gets pregnant and decides to have the baby. However, “Grow Your Eyelashes” is not really her story but rather one told through the eyes of her sister, whose struggle with infertility is making her the very opposite of happy. The effect of babies (newborn, unborn) on the lives and emotions of parents (and those who long to be or decline to be parents) is at the heart of all 12 stories in this deeply resonant collection. In “Field Notes,” a 30-year-old biologist connects with the inquisitive 9-year-old daughter of the receptionist at a research facility in which she works even as the biologist decides to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. In “Period, Ellipsis, Full Stop,” a freelance book editor suffers a miscarriage and mulls the pursuit of perfection, the expectation of effortlessness: “As if you could set out to do something and get it right the first time, as if the whole of life wasn’t about trying again.” The push-pull of life and death, the tug of postpartum depression, the shame of deception, the guilt of separation—all are explored in these pages. “People say that a baby changes everything, but is that true?” Rosenwaike writes in “Parental Fade,” a story about a couple embarking on the slow, painful process of sleep training. “Are we more patient or less? More generous or more selfish? More engaged with the world or more in retreat from it? More accepting of mortality or more frightened of dying?” These questions, considered here, are among the things that may keep parents up at night.
An exquisite collection that is candid, compassionate, and emotionally complex.Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54403-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Print the bumper sticker—"I'd Rather Be Living in an Elin Hilderbrand Novel."
Back to St. John with the Steele family, whose tragic loss and horrifying discovery have yielded an exciting new life.
In Winter in Paradise (2018), Hilderbrand introduced Midwestern magazine editor Irene Steele and her adult sons, Baker and Cash, then swept them off to the island of St. John after paterfamilias Russell Steele was killed in a helicopter crash with his secret mistress, leaving a preteen love child and a spectacular villa. While the first volume left a lot up in the air about Russell’s dubious business dealings and the manner of his death, this installment fills in many of the blanks. All three Steeles made new friends during their unexpected visit to the island in January, and now that’s resulted in job offers for Irene and Cash and the promise of new love for single dad Baker. Why not move to St. John and into the empty villa? Mother, sons, and grandson do just that. Both the dead mistress’s diary and a cadre of FBI agents begin to provide answers to the questions left dangling in Volume 1, and romantic prospects unfold for all three Steeles. Nevertheless, as a wise person once said, shit happens, combusting the family’s prospects and leading to a cliffhanger ending. On the way, there will be luscious island atmosphere, cute sundresses, frozen drinks, “slender baguette sandwiches with duck, arugula and fig jam,” lemongrass sugar cookies, and numerous bottles of both Krug and Dom Pérignon, the latter served by a wiseass who offers one of his trademark tasting notes: “This storied bubbly has notes of Canadian pennies, your dad’s Members Only jacket, and…‘We Are Never, Ever, Ever Getting Back Together.’ ” You'll be counting the days until you can return to the Virgin Islands with these characters in the concluding volume of the trilogy.
Print the bumper sticker—"I'd Rather Be Living in an Elin Hilderbrand Novel."Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-43557-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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