A profound, witty, and compassionate work with a compelling protagonist and message.
A 14-year-old girl tries to make sense of a raven’s announcement that she’s a prophet in Heinrichs’ novel.
Call her Jonah. The former Joan Mudgett adopted her father’s name after he disappeared—the same day her mother was murdered, more than a year ago. She’s certain that he had nothing to do with the crime, and she wants only to find the true “evil doer.” It’s now early January, and Joan lives alone in the family house at the foot of Jumper Mountain in New Hampshire, helped out by her teacher and friend, Mary Sullivan. When she’s not rereading Moby-Dick, she often patrols her surroundings on skis; on one such outing, she’s greeted by a talking raven who says, “I am Gabriel, come to appoint you humanity’s most sacred voice.” According to the raven, her prophecies are supposed to “create a favorable carom, a swerve, a divergence” to steer humanity away from terrible events. After other kids at school start a rumor that she hears voices, she’s pressed for predictions, so she makes some at random, expecting them to come to nothing—but they appear to come true instead. Joan decides to admit that she really is a prophet, with her message being that the world is too noisy: “Think how much more you can learn by shutting up. Being quiet.” As the quietness movement hilariously snowballs (and is monetized), Joan finally learns the truth about her parents. Heinrichs has also written three nonfiction books on rhetoric, and his debut novel is utterly engaging and complex as it combines comedy, tragedy, a coming-of-age story, social commentary, timely reflections on the Covid-19 pandemic, and scintillating philosophy about the biosphere. As the raven says, humans miss the beauty of other species’ communications: “You are surrounded by creatures who compose poetry and sparkling dialogues with smells, colors, shadows, and eloquent pauses.” Joan’s outsize impact on world events is made more plausible by her enormous charisma, courage, and independence over the course of the novel.
A profound, witty, and compassionate work with a compelling protagonist and message.Pub Date: March 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73672-660-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Gavia Books
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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