A cutting, if frustrating, eat-the-rich yarn.
The spouse of a scandal-plagued entrepreneur drowns his sorrows at a Caribbean retreat.
Chapman’s second novel, following Riots I Have Known (2019), centers on Guy Sarvananthan, the son of Sri Lankan immigrants, a failed composer, and, as the story opens, the husband of a vanished wife, Victoria Stevens. Her kayak was found empty in San Francisco Bay and it looks like she’s drowned, but Guy surmises that she’s likely faked her death before word gets out that her startup, which claimed to have a cure for cancer, has come up empty. Rather than head west from New York to play-act as a concerned husband, he co-opts Victoria’s invitation to the Quorum, a Davos-style masters-of-the-universe gathering on a private island owned by a Bezos-ian figure. From there, Chapman’s novel becomes a satire of the ultrarich on two tracks. Chapters narrated by Victoria describe her escape to Joshua Tree, meticulously tracking her wellness and productivity while rationalizing her fraud. Guy, meanwhile, insinuates himself as a boozy, druggy habitue of the billionaire set, at least until Victoria’s fraud is revealed (“I don’t want to think about any problems,” he says. “My goal is ruinous intake”). Which is to say that both of Chapman’s leads are contemptible, if to a purpose: He means to expose how moral rot infects the 0.25 percent, mainly by showing how the gathering, ostensibly meant for the sake of organized, well-financed do-gooderism, degenerates into self-interested squabbling. But though he has a keen eye for the foibles of the new gilded age, Chapman has done his job almost too well—his efforts to make Guy a nuanced character (immigrant, artistically talented, skeptical) make his ultimate narcissism and blithe self-destructiveness all the more frustrating. Unlikable characters are fair game in fiction; abjectly, determinedly hollow ones are a tougher sell.
A cutting, if frustrating, eat-the-rich yarn.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781641295628
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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