A bright, entertaining tale with a lovable protagonist.
A loyal, hard-working, and surprisingly contemplative dog describes his life on a Tennessee farm in this endearing novel.
Arthur Dogson Todd proudly protects Misty Meadows Farm, and the 10-year-old dachshund and Jack Russell mix takes his “forever profession” very seriously. He lives with his “sapiens,” O’mamma and Mr. Cliff, and myriad animals, including horses, chickens, cats, and Arthur’s assistant, Pristine, a rat terrier who doesn’t actually catch any rats. Arthur has a solid system in place, with several guarding stations around the farm for “maximum range of surveillance coverage.” He consistently hones his craft, like launching the Prior Protection Program, in which he takes action at the mere whisper of danger. It’s a challenging gig; his humans don’t always understand him, suspecting the innocent canine of stealing eggs (or so their facial expressions seem to say) or wrongly referring to his keen observations (and accompanying behavior) as “complaints.” Arthur runs into all sorts of trouble on the farm—a rooster attacks him with its spurs, and O’mamma and Mr. Cliff are so distracted by some kind of “abbey” (and its interminable episodes) that they all but ignore Arthur and Pristine. The canine isn’t only about perfecting his skillset; he also tries to better himself as a dog. Nearly every experience on the farm comes with a lesson to apply to daily life. For example, he must fight to control anger and jealousy since those emotions can bring out his “dark side.”
DeVito, whose previous work was Two Spirits Here (2011), structures the novel as a series of essays narrated by Arthur. The dog charmingly defines aspects of his job, like his various barks (e.g., Intruder-Alert Bark) and his guarding station’s Comfort Level Rating System (the least comfortable being the much-dreaded post on the gravel driveway). In some of his entries, he primarily observes or reports, like witnessing the unexpected outcome of Pristine lying on the sapiens’ pillow, a forbidden spot. Arthur has his own delightful way of describing things. He employs abundant acronyms in his work and downtime—DMC (Direct Mouth Capture) and the DFHL (Dying From Hunger Look). Although Arthur shrewdly comprehends most of what his sapiens say to him and to one another, he sometimes misunderstands and memorably so: Mr. Cliff calls himself a “leg man,” prompting Arthur to assiduously search for meaning in the many legs he sees. Arthur’s combination of smarts and naïveté makes him an easy dog to love, especially since he continually strives to improve and embraces everyone in the farm family, even the shifty cats. The supporting cast, most notably O’mamma and Mr. Cliff, help round out Arthur’s world. Vagreti’s black-and-white drawings, which precede each chapter, deliver sharply defined images of, for example, tired dogs luxuriating in a human bed and the classic canine smile.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781628802818
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2024
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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