Two richly textured, captivating tales of inappropriate romance.
Close-knit communities get roiled by dubious loves in this pair of novellas.
Young’s two tales explore families, school groups, and small towns beset by buried secrets and unspoken desires. Joseph and Mary: A Family Romance centers on the Wilson family, a Scottsdale, Arizona, clan of adult siblings who have failed to thrive. Peter, the narrator, is a 28-year-old artist who has returned from San Francisco after he suffered an eye injury. His younger brother, Matthew, is an alcoholic poet given to spouting Shakespeare at opportune moments; his older sister, Mary, is a stripper; and Joseph, the eldest, has come home for Thanksgiving after being kicked out of the priesthood. The family reunion is full of unspoken tensions, especially between Mary and Joseph over a murky incident in high school that no one wants to talk about, one that’s bound up in his possible gay sexuality and her exhibitionism. Rec Park: A Small-Town Romance takes place in the idyllic coastal town of El Camino, California, where college professor and swim coach Dick Starling becomes infatuated with 17-year-old S.K., a Filipina immigrant. Dick, who has a Filipina wife and stepdaughter, becomes a nervous swain, awkwardly seeking encounters with S.K. at church or her sister M.K.’s swim practice. He’s buoyed whenever S.K. throws a stray “Hello” his way but very aware of how ruinous a relationship with her could be. She seems friendly but aloof—until a crisis erupts when she discovers that she doesn’t have legal immigrant status and starts mulling a plan to protect herself from deportation by getting pregnant with an American citizen’s baby. Young’s luminous stories probe deep issues of how families work, who belongs to them, and what boundaries define them. He embeds them in atmospheric settings, with Arizona’s golden-hued Pima reservation and El Camino’s quaint but claustrophobic townscape becoming influential characters. The author’s limpid, evocative prose reveals his players’ hearts by perceiving the world through their eyes: “Even after all those months of coaching,” Dick loved “to watch the girls—his daughter, M.K., the bunch—move through the pale blue water, at different lengths, intervals, their sleek, small power on display. It looked like an electric grid.”
Two richly textured, captivating tales of inappropriate romance.Pub Date: June 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73442-360-0
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Bowker
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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