Deeply provocative in its quiet contemplation.
A young woman’s platonic but passionate relationship with her mentor affords her insight into both the past and her own possible futures.
When we meet the main narrator of this languid novel of ideas, she’s a young woman fulfilling an unpaid internship at Rydéns, a prestigious publishing house in Stockholm. A woman from a stolid middle-class Swedish family whose parents “dutifully went off to work without any particular career ambitions,” the narrator is overwhelmed by her own inexperience. She has to learn “from scratch: what to wear, how to use the printer and the photocopier…” Also, how to navigate the standard interpersonal politics of any office, which, in this particularly heady profession, also include entrenched positions on the nature of art, the function of publishing, and the ideology of commerce, as Rydéns struggles to place itself at the forefront of modern Swedish culture while still maintaining the prestige of a past steeped in traditional publishing values. Introverted and serious in nature, the narrator feels more kinship with literature of “genuine purpose” than she does with the sort of books her contemporaries are more likely to champion—easily marketable novels with “a clear message” but written in “dull prose, lying heavy and dead on every single page…as if the authors had followed a template for significant depictions of contemporary society.” The narrator’s iconoclasm soon catches the eye of Gunnar, Rydéns powerful editor-in-chief, whose own sensibilities are a reliquary of a rapidly vanishing age. Gunnar takes the narrator under his wing, grooming her to take over his position running Andromeda, the avant-garde imprint he founded. Over the next many years, the two form an enduring bond, centered around their love for ideas and the glimmering impossibility of something more they both feel developing between them. But when Gunnar’s ill health forces him into retirement, the narrator is left alone to examine the true nature of their relationship, of her identity within the systems she has helped to preserve, and of the art she celebrates. A confident, erudite novel, comfortable with developing at its own pace, Bohman’s latest adds to her growing cavalcade of young women with old, enduring ideals.
Deeply provocative in its quiet contemplation.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781635424188
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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