A thoughtful exploration of race and class tensions in modern-day Britain and of the lingering effects of a long-ago tragedy.
A heated contest for leadership of a contemporary British labor organization drives a novel that confronts difficult issues of race and class in that nation.
When Nayan Olak and his former ally Megha Sharma, both of Indian descent, face off for the chance to serve as the first person of color to be general secretary of their union amid the Covid-19 pandemic, their campaign quickly degenerates into an ugly brawl, marred by allegations of racism and an accusation of a physical assault by one candidate against the other. The events are recounted by Sajjan Dhanoa, a writer who grew up in Nayan’s hometown of Chesterfield, England. There, two decades earlier, a fire killed Nayan’s mother and his young son as they slept in the apartment above the shop his parents owned. That event triggered the breakup of Nayan’s marriage, and he’s haunted by memories of the tragedy, especially as he cares for his father, who survived the fire and now suffers from worsening dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Amid the unrelenting pressure of the campaign, Nayan pursues a relationship with Helen Fletcher, a white native of Chesterfield who may have some connection to the fatal blaze, and whose son Brandon, an aspiring chef, has had his own disastrous encounter with racial conflict that prefigures the Nayan-Megha battle. Sahota frames the election contest as one pitting Nayan’s “transracial, working-class solidarity” against Megha’s “inclusionary neoliberalism,” which emphasizes racial identity, allowing their face-off to serve as a microcosm of these tensions within the larger British society. For the most part, that conflict emerges organically, save for a somewhat didactic rendering of it in the campaign’s climactic debate. Despite some occasionally awkward foreshadowing, the novel resolves both of its main plot threads in efficient, and satisfyingly surprising, fashion.
A thoughtful exploration of race and class tensions in modern-day Britain and of the lingering effects of a long-ago tragedy.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780593655986
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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