A dense and surprising tale from an acclaimed Lithuanian author.
Lithuanian writer Šaltenis’ 1990 novel about a small-town pastor’s death is available in English for the first time.
On a frigid Christmas night in Lithuania at some point in the distant past, the pastor Kristijonas goes missing. When he’s located the next day, he’s lying among the animals in his own manger, nearly frozen to death; some people say that he was trying to preach the Gospel to the livestock. When the man dies a few days later, the circumstances surrounding his demise remain unclear. As a funeral is prepared, the life of Kristijonas is revealed through his past interactions with the colorful villagers who lived around him, including Karvelis, the former herdsman and current church bell ringer, who loved the pastor but fears encountering him as a ghost, as “he had, after all, sinned heavily against the late Kristijonas”—and, it’s revealed, others as well. Another villager is Lotė the Betrothed, who never married, and her son, Jonelis, whom Kristijonas once said had the makings of a bishop. There’s also Fingerless Limba, the local schoolteacher and undertaker, whose missing appendages are the cause (and result) of controversy. Through these and other characters, a loving, self-effacing portrait of rural Lithuania emerges. Šaltenis’ prose, as translated by Novickas, is formal but riotous in tone: “So then, when Mr. Kristijonas was still but a crowing baby, the plague arrived, neither sought nor summoned, and went reeling through the villages without missing a single cottage, unbending, proud, all buttoned up like a minor court official.” As the author wrote the work toward the end of the Soviet period in Lithuania, the book can be read as a reaction to that occupation—especially as, in the novel, the country faces a similar threat from Germans. For readers without a sense of Lithuanian history, however, it reads more like an off-kilter pastiche of preindustrial life. It’s a short book, and it may take the reader some time to acclimate to its peculiar rhythms, but the wide assortment of intersecting lives and disputed histories makes for an amusing puzzle.
A dense and surprising tale from an acclaimed Lithuanian author.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9966304-5-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Pica Pica Press
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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