A meandering but vigorous story about wayward youth and the necessity of art.
In Lane’s literary novel, a music lover attempts to make sense of his reality in 1980s Michigan.
Stuart Page is back in Flint for the summer following his freshman year of college. He’s spending it drinking with his friends, stirring up old memories, and obsessively analyzing the music of bands such as the Cure, the Smiths, and Joy Division. (The novel shares a title with a 1983 New Order song.) Their records provide a soundtrack for his life in a dour, working-class town: “My block was just like I remembered it: a funeral procession of American made motor vehicles parked on the south side of the street outside of not-quite-but-pretty-damn-near-shabby aluminum-sided houses with scrubbed and repainted, lusterless siding.” Stuart takes it all in as he feels pressure to find a summer job and copes with his familial tensions and expectations. Meanwhile, he’s preoccupied with the late Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, memories of his Chippewa grandfather, and a mysterious figure he calls “the Viking,” who seems to be following him. Lane’s coming-of-age story interrogates timeless themes of class, violence, assimilation, and the rough stumble to adulthood. Stuart is a memorable protagonist who mixes familiar slacker ennui with an obsessive fascination with music. The conversational prose—mostly Stuart’s internal monologue—burbles with non sequiturs, as when the protagonist derails a phone call with a friend’s roommate: “Gina, it’s Stuart….What has been your biggest disappointment, music wise? Mine’s been A Flock of Seagulls. I loved those guys….I think a band with too much style is doomed to failure.” The reader will likely be reminded of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelityor possibly Richard Linklater’s 1993 film Dazed and Confused; Lane’s tale is similarly episodic and digressive and more dedicated to re-creating the feeling of a time and place than telling a cohesive story. Even so, the sharp prose and inviting energy help it to succeed where similar novels fail. Readers will enjoy following Stuart’s thought processes, wherever they lead.
A meandering but vigorous story about wayward youth and the necessity of art.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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