Enjoyable and well plotted, if slightly contrived.
A hypertopical, semisatirical, Ethan Frome–inspired portrait of a family on the edge.
Sixteen years ago, Ethan and Zo Frome (short for Zenobia) fled Brooklyn for life in the “quiet nowhere” that is Starkfield, Massachusetts, and now, as they settle into middle age, it's becoming clear to both of them that their lives have not worked out as they planned. When we meet them, in 2018, against the backdrop of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, Zo is consumed with her women’s group, All Them Witches, which, since Trump’s election—though neither political event is named explicitly—has met in the Fromes' living room “to make posters and write postcards and process the dumpster fire that is the news these days.” And though Ethan is, in his own estimation “one of the good guys,” who respects women, of course he does, he cannot help but find this off-putting, the way it is both sexless and distinctly middle-aged. When they met, Zo was a promising documentary filmmaker, and the guerrilla marketing startup he co-founded was on the cutting edge, and now she's rage-buying furniture online, and he's living off checks from a company he hasn’t worked for in years. Meanwhile, their 11-year-old daughter has severe ADHD neither she nor they can cope with, which is part of why they’ve hired 20-something Maddy, who, rather than solutions, brings troubles of her own. (Also, predictable romantic intrigue for Ethan.) Nothing about the characters is idiosyncratic or surprising or especially nuanced—not Zo’s anger, not Ethan’s wistful nostalgia—and the novel can’t seem to decide exactly how heightened it wants to be. And yet the plot is cleverly constructed, and lost-youth longing is intoxicating, and just because the characters seem sent from central casting doesn’t mean they can’t pack an emotional punch.
Enjoyable and well plotted, if slightly contrived.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-22965-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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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