A sharp study of the perils of ideology in collision with art.
An acclaimed director looks back on an adolescence shaped by Maoism and guerrilla warfare.
Vásquez’s new novel is based on the real-life Colombian filmmaker Sergio Cabrera, who, as the story opens, is thrust into the past for a host of reasons. He’s presiding over a retrospective of his movies in Barcelona, which his ancestors fled to escape the Spanish Civil War; he’s attempting to reconnect with his son and his shaky marriage; and, most disruptive of all, he’s received word that his father has died back in Bogotá. Practically by force, Sergio’s mind casts back to his parents’ lives as theater and TV figures in Colombia and the family’s eventual move to Peking (as it was then known), where they embrace Maoism even while witnessing the violence of the Cultural Revolution. In the late 1960s, Sergio and his sister, Marianella, return to Colombia and participate in the Communist guerrilla movement there. With increasing frequency, the siblings become disillusioned with the rigidity and hypocrisy of the Communist leaders they encounter and are both psychologically and physically wounded by it. Still, Vásquez’s portrait of Sergio—based on more than 30 hours of interviews with Cabrera, according to an author’s note—isn’t simply a critique of authoritarian doctrine. Rather, the story is a more tender bildungsroman about the ways that heartbreak and political disillusionment intertwine to form our personalities; Sergio’s ideological development is braided with scenes of young romance and his growing enchantment with filmmaking. The book bears some of the stiffness of heavy research, at times reading more like a biography than a novel, complete with family photos. But it’s a strong entry in the author's careerlong exploration of the ways the political winds can change an artist’s fortunes.
A sharp study of the perils of ideology in collision with art.Pub Date: May 9, 2023
ISBN: 9780593539613
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
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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