A novel that provides readers with a fuller, if not particularly thrilling, understanding of a legendary artist.
Debut author Amato presents a historical novel based on the formative years of Pablo Picasso.
In 1915, a former Spanish member of the French Foreign Legion named Bianco seeks out a painting by his old friend Picasso titled Harlequin. Bianco had only seen it at an earlier stage, and he’s shocked when he sees the final version at an art dealer’s place. The work originally contained two dancers, but in its final iteration, the two figures have been changed into one. The narrative then moves back in time to Picasso’s early life in Spain. The once-great Spanish empire was losing wars abroad and enduring social strife at home. Although Picasso avoided much of the violence, his immediate family was poor; they couldn’t even afford a proper funeral for his sister, Conchita, who died before her First Communion. The sorrows of Picasso’s youth stayed with him as he threw himself into his work. The book follows the painter up until his initial collaboration with Jean Cocteau in 1916, and concludes before the name Picasso became world-renowned. The focus is on the artist’s lesser-known works and associations; figures such as Gertrude Stein receive mention, but far more important to the narrative are forgotten names, such as the young Spanish painter and poet Carlos Casagemas. It’s striking how many of Picasso’s friends committed suicide, and the narrative does well to show the dark edges of their seemingly carefree, bohemian lifestyles. This intriguing darkness helps set the stage for the artist’s fame to come. However, readers may find it difficult to engage with the narrative, due to the fact that none of the main characters—not even Picasso—are particularly likable or exciting. They drink and make art (or hang out with those who do); some go to war and pay dearly for the adventure. But there’s not much here to make one truly care about any of their fates. In the end, they seem like nothing more than a truly lost generation. (The book includes numerous photos, including images of several famous paintings.)
A novel that provides readers with a fuller, if not particularly thrilling, understanding of a legendary artist.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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