A poetic novel that dances on the edge of hope and despair.
A biracial woman contemplates motherhood, grief, and being Black in America.
The unnamed narrator of Harrison’s debut novel is a 34-year-old Black Japanese photographer and teacher who is struggling with infertility and an increasingly complicated relationship to motherhood. Slipping back and forth in time, the slim novel follows the narrator’s stream-of-consciousness thoughts and meandering memories. The narrator blames herself for a life-altering family tragedy and struggles to believe she deserves good things, including, and perhaps most especially, a child. Between attending therapy sessions and police brutality protests, the narrator remembers falling in love with her husband, Asher Fromm, her recent miscarriage, the agony of her young adulthood, and teaching her photography students, including a talented Black student named Noah. When Noah is shot by police while reaching for a candy bar in his back pocket, the narrator begins to question whether she wants to bring a baby into this world—into a country that murders Black children—despite it being all her husband (who is White and Jewish) wants. Her once-staunch stance against motherhood and marriage changed when she met him, but in the face of her all-consuming grief she asks: “Could my malfunctioning body and the reality of this American nightmare change it back?” As the couple figures out how to move forward after loss, the narrator finds herself secretly visiting Noah in the hospital, working on a new documentary project, and, against all odds, pregnant again. Harrison’s writing is unflinching throughout, but the depictions of miscarriage and infertility—and their effect on a marriage—are particularly haunting: “The light is perfect, and you are far away in some honest, uncharted place. I don’t know where, only that I can’t get there. Not even with directions, a compass, or you holding my hand.” In the vein of Jenny Offill and Raven Leilani, Harrison’s debut offers an intimate slice-of-life portrait with no easy questions or answers.
A poetic novel that dances on the edge of hope and despair.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781593767495
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
A sweet bedtime story.
A boy and his stuffed bear head into the woods.
Having captured readers’ attention with Born a Crime (2016), his bestselling memoir of growing up in South Africa, comedian and television host Noah has written a parable about decision-making. As he puts it in a brief prologue, “It’s about disagreements and difference—but it’s also about how we bridge those gaps and find what matters most, whether we’re parents or kids, neighbors, gnomes, or political adversaries. It’s a picture book, but it’s not a children’s book. Rather, it is a book for kids to share with parents and for parents to share with kids.” With plentiful illustrations by Hahn and in language aimed at young listeners, it tells the story of a small boy so impatient to start his Saturday adventures that he rebels against the rules of his household and heads out without brushing his teeth or making his bed, despite the reminders of his stuffed bear, Walter. “We can’t just run away,” protests the bear. “Your mother will miss you. And where will we sleep? And who will make us waffles?” “We’ll build our own house,” the boy responds. “And we’ll grow our own waffles!” From there, the pair go on their walkabout, encountering a garden gnome, a pair of snails, and a gang of animated coins who have lessons to offer about making choices. Though the author suggests in the introduction that adult readers might enjoy the book on their own, those looking for a follow-up to the memoir or a foray into adult fiction should be warned that this is not that book.
A sweet bedtime story.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780593729960
Page Count: 128
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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
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