Big, ambitious and heartfelt. If it’s less fully achieved than V.I.’s adventures, Paretsky’s fans will probably devour it...
The creator of V.I. Warshawski (Fire Sale, 2005, etc.) tells the story of three deep-rooted farm families in Lawrence, Kan., whose troubled interactions seem to recapitulate the state’s violent history.
The families include the fundamentalist Schapens, in this generation represented by matriarch Myra, her deputy-sheriff son, Arnie, and his boys Junior, a football bully, and Robbie, his favorite target; the left-liberal Grelliers, represented by Jim and Susan and their children Chip (né Etienne), 18, and Lara, 15; and the lordly Fremantles, who were the town’s first family but in this generation are all but gone. Trouble seems to begin with two new arrivals to the community: Gina Haring, the recently divorced niece of John Fremantle’s late wife, invited to live in his home, and Nasya, the solid red calf Robbie’s bred who could just turn out to become the ritual sacrifice necessary for the Jewish dream of establishing the Second Temple in Jerusalem. (Note: Ancient Jewish prophecy states that the Second Temple, destroyed in 70 CE, can be rebuilt only under the direction of a rabbi purified by the ashes of an unblemished red cow sacrificed at three years of age; Christian prophecy, meanwhile, states that the Second Coming won't happen until the destruction of this Second Temple.) Gina encourages Susan Grellier, already reviled on Myra Schapen’s vitriolic right-wing blog for her experiments in organic farming and communal marketing, to join her circle of Wicca dancers. Over at the Schapens, a trio of rabbis keeps checking up on Nasya to make sure she’s still unblemished and worthy of being sacrificed, and Robbie finally confesses his love to Lara Grellier. Paretsky expands this family saga in two ways. She broadens its scope to include contemporary conflicts over the Iraq war, and she adds just enough historical retrospective, in the form of extracts from the diary Abigail Grellier kept from 1855 to 1863, to show that the irruption of Gina Haring and Nasya the golden calf didn’t so much create conflict as expose fault lines that had run through the community from the beginning.
Big, ambitious and heartfelt. If it’s less fully achieved than V.I.’s adventures, Paretsky’s fans will probably devour it anyway.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15405-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2007
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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