Despite a few moments of icky sentimentality, newcomer Boehm's fascinating subject matter, engaging cast, unerring prose,...
A witty, well-crafted fictional debut from an accomplished journalist, translator, and memoirist (A Zen Romance: One Woman's Adventures in a Monastery, 1996): eight stories, all set in contemporary Japan, that chronicle supernatural occurrences in the often-lonely lives of educated urbanites.
Postmodern retellings of the traditional Japanese ghost stories popularized in the West by fin de siècle journalist Lafcadio Hearn, these longish, plot-driven pieces are actually—aside from the paranormal episodes at the heart of them—tales of romance rather than the grisly stuff of Poe or Lovecraft. "Hungry Ghosts in Love," the centerpiece of the collection, concerns Josephine Stelle, a "third-generation travel writer [and] third-generation woman of passion" who spends every waking moment trying to live up to the standards set by her intrepid grandmother Leda, reputedly one of Pancho Villa's lovers, by jetting around the globe, writing insipid articles ("Cannibal Fashion," "Best Hotel Brunches of Waikiki") for Japanese English-language travel magazines, and engaging in brief, torrid affairs with unsuitable men. Attempting to avoid one particularly offensive paramour, she impulsively treks up to a mountainous region of Japan known as the Valley of Hell, where she falls in love with Gaki, a gorgeous priest who lives alone in an ancient little shrine. When she returns to her Kyoto home, Josephine discovers that gaki means "hungry ghost." In "The Samurai Goodbye," the funniest and most nightmarish story here, a young Ph.D. program dropout—and grandson of a legendary chronicler of Japanese lore, clearly modeled on Lafcadio Hearn—finds himself haunted by faceless demons.
Despite a few moments of icky sentimentality, newcomer Boehm's fascinating subject matter, engaging cast, unerring prose, and superb sense of voice make for a compelling read.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 4-7700-2531-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Kodansha
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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