Well-intentioned but overly familiar.
This collaboration by longtime friends Edwards and Richman draws on the authors’ Black and Jewish family histories to build an expressly uplifting Civil War fiction.
The novel begins in 1863 New Orleans, showcasing the forbidden but abiding love between musically gifted William, a classically trained flutist who’s enslaved, and Stella, who lives technically free as the kept woman of William’s current owner. With Stella’s aid, William escapes to join the Union Army as a member of the Louisiana Native Guard. Meanwhile, in New York, trombonist and composer Jacob has been inspired by his wife, Lily, a suffragette and abolitionist, to join the Union forces on moral grounds. The novel balances three intertwining narratives: Pregnant with a child who could be William’s or his master’s, Stella struggles to survive in Union-controlled New Orleans, where food is scarce and Confederate insurrection a constant threat; William and Jacob experience wartime atrocities while their unlikely friendship deepens through their music connection; and in New York, Lily devotes herself to the Union cause with genteel moral certainty until she ventures South in search of Jacob and faces her naïveté about the war’s cost. Given that African Americans in the South had everything to gain or lose in this war, it is no surprise that Stella’s and William’s segments are the most compelling; the writing about New Orleans also creates a sensual, specific sense of place missing elsewhere. Lily reads like a mouthpiece for enlightened concepts, even in her love letters. There is no romantic chemistry between her and Jacob, who remains an undeveloped cipher. What should be an interesting twist, his discomfort as a Jewish outsider in the Union ranks, barely resonates, while his bonding with William comes too easily. All four protagonists are more noble symbols than characters, and key plot points—including Stella’s stitched maps and Jacob’s estrangement from his Confederate brother—border on Civil War story clichés.
Well-intentioned but overly familiar.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-525-89978-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Graydon House
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
