A fine conclusion to an eminently readable classic of modernist historical fiction.
Nobel Prize–winning Norwegian author Undset brings her tetralogy of medieval life to a resounding, memorable, and death-haunted close.
Though she is best known for her 1920 trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter, Undset’s most ambitious work may be her Olav Audunssøn series (1925–27), set in a time when Norway was transforming from a land of Viking war chiefs and blood vendettas to a Christian monarchy based on law. At the opening of this story, a young man named Aslak Gunnarssøn asks Olav, now a wealthy landowner in the fjord country west of Oslo, for sanctuary: Aslak has killed a man and is hiding from the law. The reluctant, morose Olav, still haunted by the long-ago death of his wife, Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter, grants Aslak’s wish, but when Aslak falls in love with his young daughter, Cecilia, Olav sends him away. Cecilia’s smile in Aslak’s presence, which “radiated such sweetness and secret joy that Olav couldn’t recall seeing a fairer sight,” soon fades away into gloom. Just so, Olav’s son, Eirik, whom he’s raised as his own although fathered with Ingunn by another man, loses his beloved to an ugly bout of scrofula and, though once a good candidate for the outlaw life, joins a monastery. Lacking heirs, aging and weakening, Olav marries Cecilia off to a loser named Jørund, which introduces still more misery into their daily lives. Cecilia gets her revenge, though, and so, in his own way, does the would-be saint Eirik. The overall glumness of Undset’s concluding volume is of a piece with the earlier books, and it would do a suite of Bergman films proud; the reader should be prepared to accommodate plenty of Nordic darkness punctuated by the occasional flash of a dagger. As always, Undset’s deep knowledge of Catholic doctrine and Scandinavian history informs her work, which, while cheerless and sometimes rather graphic (“Relief set in as soon as he stopped vomiting blood”), is both elegantly written and well translated.
A fine conclusion to an eminently readable classic of modernist historical fiction.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781517915414
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Univ. of Minnesota
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
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
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.
Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family.
One morning in 1975 at Camp Emerson—an Adirondacks summer camp owned by her family—it's discovered that 13-year-old Barbara isn't in her bed. A problem case whose unhappily married parents disdain her goth appearance and "stormy" temperament, Barbara is secretly known by one bunkmate to have slipped out every night after bedtime. But no one has a clue where's she permanently disappeared to, firing speculation that she was taken by a local serial killer known as Slitter. As Jacob Sluiter, he was convicted of 11 murders in the 1960s and recently broke out of prison. He's the one, people say, who should have been prosecuted for Bear's abduction, not a gardener who was framed. Leave it to the young and unproven assistant investigator, Judy Luptack, to press forward in uncovering the truth, unswayed by her bullying father and male colleagues who question whether women are "cut out for this work." An unsavory group portrait of the Van Laars emerges in which the children's father cruelly abuses their submissive mother, who is so traumatized by the loss of Bear—and the possible role she played in it—that she has no love left for her daughter. Picking up on the themes of families in search of themselves she explored in Long Bright River (2020), Moore draws sympathy to characters who have been subjected to spousal, parental, psychological, and physical abuse. As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted. Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593418918
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© 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.
