An absorbing novel by a wise and graceful writer.
In Perlstein’s novel, a bereft man, after the death of his wife of 46 years, examines his life with an aim of becoming “another version” of himself.
Steve Goldman has had an undeniably successful life in many ways. He’s a former officer at a San Francisco bank who’s found time to indulge his passion for fiction writing over the years; he knows he’ll never be as talented as Bernard Malamud or Philip Roth, but he’s content with that. Now he’s a retired widower who’s feeling his own mortality. One day, he sits down at the kitchen table and creates a life ledger of sorts, focusing mostly on his relationships with lifelong friends and thinking about when he’s been a “mensch” and when he’s been a “schmuck.” His greatest touchstones are three people he’s known since they attended junior high in Queens—Arnie Lieberman, Jeffrey Shiffrin, and Gary Weisbrod—all of whom he considers blood brothers. They’ve stayed in touch, or at least their paths have occasionally crossed, over the decades. Toward the very end of the novel, Steve offers an account of how the four took a train trip up the California coast for old times’ sake. The trip was instigated by Jeffrey, who was dying. They were all successful in their careers—Jeffrey, a lawyer; Gary, a wildly popular artist and genius self-promoter; and Arnie, an advertising agency art director-turned-painter. Arnie never forgave Steve for jilting his sister, Joyce, so many years ago; also, Steve feels that Jeffrey treated him and his wife, Evelyn, badly in the settling of her late father’s estate. All these people, and others, find their place in Steve’s ledger.
Perlstein, like his protagonist, lives in San Francisco and is a prolific and successful writer in his own right. That he writes well is hardly surprising. Steve's voice is delightful: self-regarding, conversational, honest, and witty (“I was determined to hold my ground rather than be shoveled into it”). Steve is a man who, whenever he lets himself off the hook, immediately realizes it and backtracks. Early on, he takes a walk in Golden Gate Park to clear his head and finds a split-open suitcase in the bushes; from this find, he concocts a wonderful (and sad) domestic story, establishing his writing credentials. He tells many other stories along the way, such as that of his flamboyant Uncle Max, who crossed the mob and had secrets. An account of Gary’s art installation, which has a comeuppance along the lines of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” is priceless—and it also happens to dovetail with when Steve met Evelyn. Through it all, a tortured Steve issues dicta such as “I found myself powerless to keep self-justification from duking it out with guilt.” Steve eventually realizes that his ledger may not be the salvation he’d hoped for, since life is much too messy and accounting is for CPAs. But all this reflection, all this revisiting, certainly helps him get through a very tough couple of days.
An absorbing novel by a wise and graceful writer.Pub Date: April 5, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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