A richly textured, entertaining tale of musicians struggling with their demons.
Members of a rock mega-band wrestle with drug addiction, scandals, gay sexuality, and a manipulative record label while trying not to lose their lifelong friendship in this sprawling show-biz novel.
Monroe’s yarn follows four boys who live in a nameless American town and attend St. Cecilia’s Catholic School, where they suffer savage beatings from a brutal math teacher but get mentored by kindly music instructor Sister Pat, who nurtures their talents. After high school, the quartet’s garage band, called The Sapphires, is spotted by Colin Anderson, the sharklike head of Sea Glass Records. Colin brings the musicians to New York City and shepherds them into the big time and a haphazard name change to the titular street where they grew up. The narrative follows the band members’ intertwined lives: Vince DiPaulo, the group’s leader, who chafes at Colin’s control and gets heavily into pot, LSD, and speed; sexy front man Steve Russell, whose constant womanizing strains his marriage to a Hollywood starlet; backup vocalist and songwriter Dave Corcoran, who marries Shelia Somers, not knowing that the child she is carrying is by her rapist and not him; and guitarist Kevin Bennett, a squeaky-clean but deeply closeted gay man who lives in dread that his proclivities will be discovered and ruin his career. The novel deepens these complications as the 1960s progress. The band undergoes several makeovers, moving from blue-suited doo-wop to bell-bottomed psychedelia; Vince enters a downward spiral of drug abuse that makes Colin and Steve maneuver to kick him out of the group; Dave is shaken by a family tragedy that sends him on a spiritual quest to India; and a blackmailer reveals Kevin’s secret to Colin, who has him committed to a conversion-therapy rehab unit, where he endures torturous aversion treatments.
Monroe, a former casting director, paints a complex, nuanced portrait of the entertainment industry and the personalities that inhabit it. (Colin, for example, is a domineering jerk, but his keen eye for what works in pop music underlies the band’s success.) The author’s prose is punchy, colorful, and evocative, whether he’s describing Vince’s first acid trip—“He floated about the room, and the physical contours of his body began to disappear and meld into the pigments.…Everything that was concrete and real seemed illusive and fake, and everything illusory and unseen began to take on form and shape”—or aversion therapy. (“Screaming through his clenched teeth, Kevin felt like he was being incinerated alive, as every muscle in his body constricted and the jolt of electricity pulsated through his hands and his private parts.”) But Monroe also gets at the hidden, achingly familiar psychological forces that drive his characters—even a hanger-on, as when Shelia’s mother reflects on the poverty that would be relieved if her reluctant daughter would marry Dave: “It sat like a weight in the pit of her stomach, and her body shook with the recognition of it. Images of scarcity and lack played out in her mind’s eye like the endless reels of a bad horror movie, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t silence the relentless voice of doom that echoed in her head.” As lurid as their excesses can be, the author grounds his players in motivations that feel universal.
A richly textured, entertaining tale of musicians struggling with their demons.Pub Date: March 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781633813373
Page Count: 394
Publisher: Maine Authors Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving, realistic look at one woman’s post-divorce family life that manages to be both poignant and funny.
A recently divorced writer juggles a chaotic full house, a struggling career, and a confusing romantic life.
Lila Kennedy thought she had the perfect family—a loving mother, a doting stepfather, two wonderful daughters, and a great husband. She even wrote a self-help book about repairing a marriage, which was published a mere two weeks before her husband left her. After her own mother’s sudden death, Lila finds herself an unexpected single mom with her health-nut stepfather, Bill, for a roommate. When her long-absent actor father, Gene, moves in, things go from crowded to chaotic. When Gene isn’t talking about his memories of starring on a Star Trek–like television show, he’s starting fights with Bill. Perhaps the worst part is that Lila’s supposed to produce a new book about the unexpected direction her life has taken. She quickly finds that writing about her real-life romantic exploits (including the kind gardener Bill hired and the sexy single dad she lusts after at school pick-up) and the actual heartbreak that upended her family is easier said than done. Moyes creates a world that is believable and funny. It’s hilarious to read about the distinct characters in Lila’s life—such as her lentil-loving stepfather and egocentric biological father—interacting with each other. There’s plenty of drama here, but none of it feels forced. It all comes from flawed people doing their best to coexist and making plenty of mistakes along the way. Moyes combines the warmth of an Annabel Monaghan rom-com with the humanity of a Catherine Newman novel, creating a story that will provoke tears and laughter.
A moving, realistic look at one woman’s post-divorce family life that manages to be both poignant and funny.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781984879325
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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
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