A meandering but vigorous story about wayward youth and the necessity of art.
In Lane’s literary novel, a music lover attempts to make sense of his reality in 1980s Michigan.
Stuart Page is back in Flint for the summer following his freshman year of college. He’s spending it drinking with his friends, stirring up old memories, and obsessively analyzing the music of bands such as the Cure, the Smiths, and Joy Division. (The novel shares a title with a 1983 New Order song.) Their records provide a soundtrack for his life in a dour, working-class town: “My block was just like I remembered it: a funeral procession of American made motor vehicles parked on the south side of the street outside of not-quite-but-pretty-damn-near-shabby aluminum-sided houses with scrubbed and repainted, lusterless siding.” Stuart takes it all in as he feels pressure to find a summer job and copes with his familial tensions and expectations. Meanwhile, he’s preoccupied with the late Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, memories of his Chippewa grandfather, and a mysterious figure he calls “the Viking,” who seems to be following him. Lane’s coming-of-age story interrogates timeless themes of class, violence, assimilation, and the rough stumble to adulthood. Stuart is a memorable protagonist who mixes familiar slacker ennui with an obsessive fascination with music. The conversational prose—mostly Stuart’s internal monologue—burbles with non sequiturs, as when the protagonist derails a phone call with a friend’s roommate: “Gina, it’s Stuart….What has been your biggest disappointment, music wise? Mine’s been A Flock of Seagulls. I loved those guys….I think a band with too much style is doomed to failure.” The reader will likely be reminded of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelityor possibly Richard Linklater’s 1993 film Dazed and Confused; Lane’s tale is similarly episodic and digressive and more dedicated to re-creating the feeling of a time and place than telling a cohesive story. Even so, the sharp prose and inviting energy help it to succeed where similar novels fail. Readers will enjoy following Stuart’s thought processes, wherever they lead.
A meandering but vigorous story about wayward youth and the necessity of art.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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