A bittersweet exploration of family, nicely balanced between hangdog humor and plangent emotion.
A lawyer stuck in a rut receives some crotchety holiday cheer from a mysterious old couple in Florio’s charming Christmas story.
At the age of 45, with gray hairs and a spare tire growing apace, John Persepio makes a mediocre living filing wrongful termination lawsuits against superstore chain U-Sav-Plentee. But he still has a heart; on his way to court, he stops to help a shriveled old man whose ancient Chevy Impala has suffered a flat tire, weathering acerbic jibes in the process. (“Not much of a car for a lawyer,” the man notes of John’s threadbare Subaru.) The incident touches off a series of weird occurrences, including odd time distortions, a vomiting spell that scotches his closing argument in a big case, and more encounters with the old man and his equally gnomic wife in stores, parking lots, and at a Christmas party. The couple subject him to amusing but enigmatic conversations while insisting that they are on their way home (where that may be is never specified). Meanwhile, John wrestles with his fraying marriage to his perpetually aggrieved wife Linda and his distant relationships with his teenage sons Joseph and Mark, whose faces are permanently buried in their phones and video games; his warm rapport with his sweet 5-year-old daughter Macy is the brightest spot in his life. Adding to his gloom are his guilty ruminations about his parents, who died young in their 50s, and his brother Michael, who committed suicide. John’s funk is sometimes relieved and sometimes deepened by the hectic run-up to Christmas: An excursion to a Christmas tree lot for a memorably crooked tree allows him to bond with the kids, a slapstick disaster that devastates both a ham and the tree heightens tensions, and a Midnight Mass proves surprisingly soothing. But at another meeting early on Christmas Day, the old couple bring up ominous prospects confronting John: divorce, a possible brain tumor, and maybe worse.
Florio’s yarn is a richly textured portrait of a middle-class clan with sharply etched characters and a touch of magical realism, written in evocative prose that’s wryly funny but has darker undertones of uncertainty, gathering estrangement, and loss. The author has a sharp eye for family dynamics, whether in the studied boredom of adolescents (“the boys seemed to be intrigued by the sight of the trees, even though they tried to stifle any sign that perhaps they were on the verge of possibly enjoying themselves”) or the explosive antagonism between resentful spouses (“‘you had plenty of chances to tell me not to do this tonight. I asked you fifty times. You said, every single time, it’s fine. Go ahead. It’s fine’”). Through subtle observations of everyday life, Florio crafts a resonant message about the purpose of parenthood, as when John watches the kids manage the tree without him: “In a weird sort of way, it showed they’d be OK without me, without parents, with nothing other than their own motivations and aspirations and above all else each other. I felt at once relieved and fulfilled and entirely irrelevant.” By turns comic, ruminative and heartfelt, Florio’s tale captures the deep emotional currents flowing through a not-quite-typical Christmas.
A bittersweet exploration of family, nicely balanced between hangdog humor and plangent emotion.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9798987944035
Page Count: 268
Publisher: PFT Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 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
A sweet bedtime story.
A boy and his stuffed bear head into the woods.
Having captured readers’ attention with Born a Crime (2016), his bestselling memoir of growing up in South Africa, comedian and television host Noah has written a parable about decision-making. As he puts it in a brief prologue, “It’s about disagreements and difference—but it’s also about how we bridge those gaps and find what matters most, whether we’re parents or kids, neighbors, gnomes, or political adversaries. It’s a picture book, but it’s not a children’s book. Rather, it is a book for kids to share with parents and for parents to share with kids.” With plentiful illustrations by Hahn and in language aimed at young listeners, it tells the story of a small boy so impatient to start his Saturday adventures that he rebels against the rules of his household and heads out without brushing his teeth or making his bed, despite the reminders of his stuffed bear, Walter. “We can’t just run away,” protests the bear. “Your mother will miss you. And where will we sleep? And who will make us waffles?” “We’ll build our own house,” the boy responds. “And we’ll grow our own waffles!” From there, the pair go on their walkabout, encountering a garden gnome, a pair of snails, and a gang of animated coins who have lessons to offer about making choices. Though the author suggests in the introduction that adult readers might enjoy the book on their own, those looking for a follow-up to the memoir or a foray into adult fiction should be warned that this is not that book.
A sweet bedtime story.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780593729960
Page Count: 128
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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