With his second novel, Alam cements his status as that kind of writer: insightful, intrepid, and truly impressive.
This story about a white woman who adopts her black nanny's son burrows deep into issues of race, class, and the nature of family.
Rebecca Stone is the attractive wife of a British diplomat, a talented poet, an admirer of Princess Diana (the book is set in the late 1980s and '90s), the sort of person who is equally adept at both attending and hosting parties. She lives in a tastefully decorated house in Washington, D.C.; wears designer clothes; drives a Volvo; cooks delicious, complex meals in her well-appointed kitchen. In short, she is, among other attributes, rich and pretty—which happens to be the title of Alam’s well-received 2016 debut novel. With this, his second book, Alam further demonstrates his ability to write remarkably convincingly from a woman’s perspective, credibly capturing even the particulars of childbirth and breast-feeding, not to mention the emotional challenges of balancing motherhood and fulfilling work. When we first meet Rebecca, she is about to give birth to a son, Jacob, an event that leads to a connection with a hospital breast-feeding consultant named Priscilla Johnson, who will become Jacob’s nanny. Rebecca is white; Priscilla is black. But their relationship is far more nuanced than those bare facts may lead you to expect, and their story plays out in unpredictable ways. When Priscilla dies unexpectedly in childbirth, Rebecca instinctively moves to adopt her newborn son, a decision that will change Rebecca's life, her family, and her view of the world. Here Alam proves he is a writer brave and empathetic enough not only to look at life from the perspective of another gender and era, but also to boldly dive in and explore controversial topics, posing questions about the way we treat one another and the challenges of overcoming preconceptions. Digging through to uncomfortable truths, he emerges squarely on the side of hope.
With his second novel, Alam cements his status as that kind of writer: insightful, intrepid, and truly impressive.Pub Date: May 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-266760-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
PROFILES
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
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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