An astute and absorbing study of personal growth, human connection, and the nature of reality.
In this fictional meditation on truth, art, and propaganda, an aging hippie reevaluates her artistic vision when she takes a job as assistant to an iconic newscaster.
Before arriving at the opulent home of disabled television journalist Peter Bright in the Thousand Islands area of Ontario, Tina Gabler had watched her life follow a not-uncommon trajectory for those who came of age in the 1970s. Leaving behind parental expectations in her home city of New York to join counterculture communities in California and Vermont, then escaping to Canada with a draft-evading boyfriend, she settled into the protean life of a self-employed event planner in Toronto. Now, at the age of 59 in the summer of 2011, she seeks respite from the gig-to-gig grind and an alternative to following her astronomer boyfriend, Carl, on his yearlong residency in the Canary Islands. Peter, once a famous newscaster, is now dealing with aging and the debilitating effects of post-polio syndrome. He needs Tina not only as chef and personal assistant, but also as an aide in organizing his book about “documentary photography and…the manipulation of imagery.” Working for Peter promises Tina not only the prospect of assisting a prominent journalist on a fascinating project, but also the opportunity to reexamine her life and reconnect with her identity as a graphic artist, teasing out the imagined stories captured in photos. In its questioning of art as both representation and a distortion of reality, Schlack’s novel is sincerely thoughtful while also being warmly personal in its study of the struggle to find meaning both in cultural iconography and individual life experiences. Layers exist throughout the text, in the diverse generational views as well as the uses of photographic and video imagery—from Peter’s “factual” journalistic pictures to Tina’s emotive graphic representations and Carl’s quest to define the elusive dark matter of the universe. The book’s title contains layers of meaning in terms that describe human passion and evasiveness and techniques of photo manipulation. As Peter is quickly burning the last of his life’s essence, Tina works to stop dodging her past, her future, and her own unique vision.
An astute and absorbing study of personal growth, human connection, and the nature of reality.Pub Date: Dec. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68433-842-9
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2021
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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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