A vivid story that uses the language and metaphors of myth to reflect on the unkind nature of age and perception.
A tale about the ravages of old age, the weight of the past and bunny rabbits.
Debut novelist Hendricks tries to apply the whimsical mood of fairy tales to the mildly experimental fiction at play here, and he largely succeeds despite the grim nature of his story. Our protagonist is an elderly man named only as Mr. Fin, who spends his time daydreaming on park benches and tinkering with an old boat; he's clearly suffering from dementia. His only company is a kindly neighbor named Viv, who comes often to check on him. What readers learn is that Fin has a rich inner life, populated by a fanciful cast of animals that includes a bold rabbit adventurer, Hart Crane, and a melancholy writer, Virginia the Wolf, among many other beasts of claw and fang. Fin’s tales (and indeed, the novel itself) also pull liberally from Homer, Cervantes, Hemingway and Virginia Woolf, sometimes (admittedly) borrowing its inspirations sans quotation or citation. Fortunately, all the characters have their own arcs and their own unique journeys—Hart Crane works feverishly to save a family of bunnies who are reeling from a zeppelin attack, while our wolf toils at her last novel in an attempt to lure her daughter home. Things take a dark turn when Fin discovers that, after 20 years, the body of his son David has washed up on the beach. David is strongly implied to have committed suicide, and whether Fin is really attempting to nurse his son back to life or simply worrying after a bit of debris is left hazy. However, as Fin struggles to understand the cipher of his long-lost son, his atmospheric daydreams become more frenzied and insistent than before. It’s a curious experiment but one that carries more emotional weight than most books starring anthropomorphic animals.
A vivid story that uses the language and metaphors of myth to reflect on the unkind nature of age and perception.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-938603-25-9
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Starcherone Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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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