Only a Brit could have produced this solipsistically witsome reflection of contemporary life—and nobody does it better.
British novelist Hannah debuts here with a biting, severely realistic George Elliotesque take on a group of late-20s professionals centered in Cambridge and Yorkshire who totter precipitously on the verge of breakup and calamity.
Sim Purdy, story editor for the popular TV soap drama Potters Court, is the galvanizing center of her group of far-flung friends, who tolerate each other only because of unfathomable English school affiliations and Sim's insistence on “tribal belonging.” She lives in Yorkshire with grumpy, combative Francis, who writes for the BBC; the big wedding of their idyllically suited friends Lucy and Matt, now living in Washington, D.C., is only weeks away, but another branch of the tree, Campbell and Eve in Manchester, has mysteriously and subversively split. Sim, the consummate macher more interested in meddling in other people's affairs than in facing her own (which include coming clean about a fling with unsavory Andrew Johnson), deems it her duty to bring Campbell to his senses by ridiculing his dopey new love, heiress to the Napper tobacco fortune. Meanwhile, a Cambridge couple, ferocious-tempered, profane literary editor Vanessa and her politically minded Modern Languages lover Nicholas, begin to chill after Vanessa drives into a Chinese cyclist and sees how sadistic she can play; while Nicholas finds himself blackmailed by Gillian, one of the group's former floozy friends turned pariah. It would be nearly impossible to engage the reader's attention in a dozen characters, and not half of them sympathetic, except that Hannah via Sim cares so deeply about the nuances of intention, action, and consequence that the reader is dragged, albeit reluctantly, through reams and reams of spiraling gossip. Who cares? some of the (male) characters continually mouth, but Hannah's meticulous and thorough process is actually fascinating for its own sake.
Only a Brit could have produced this solipsistically witsome reflection of contemporary life—and nobody does it better. (Author tour)Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-56947-281-5
Page Count: 439
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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