Picaresque, but with serious matters of faith, love, and political wrangling at its fast-beating heart.
Subversive satire of the collision of Chinese state bureaucracy, academia, and religion.
Yan turns from the village settings of many of his earlier novels to a campus in the heart of Beijing. In the heavens above the National Politics University, his allusive yarn opens with a pointed exchange between deities: Buddha asks Jesus whether he’d like help coming down from the cross, the Dao asks whether he’d like to go higher, and Jesus responds, “I am at this location that is neither high nor low, and when people see me, they see the suffering people must endure.” That life involves suffering is a point on which all can agree, and so, too, do the proponents of China’s five major (read "approved," or perhaps better, "tolerated") religions, engaged in a perpetual round of tug of war. The only real winner there, Yan notes, is the political machine behind the religious training center, just as the house always wins at gambling. They should be battling along with their peers, but Gu Mingzheng, a young Daoist, and Yahui, an 18-year-old Buddhist nun, are smitten with each other. Alas, star- and doctrine-crossed, things don’t go easily for the two, especially when a shadowy god—perhaps Old Scratch himself—called Nameless starts tinkering with mortal affairs, driving one principal character to suicide and Yahui to the point of madness, about which she says, “My shifu always said that religion is the domain of the mentally ill, and whoever is perceived as being mentally ill on account of their religious belief is a true disciple.” It’s no hallucination when the assembled gods come calling with an offer to transcend earthly travails, but instead Yahui settles down with Gu in a nondescript Beijing neighborhood. Notes Yan in an afterword, “I hoped to write a small self-aware novel about how, when holiness and secularity meet, they have no choice but to kiss.” And so they do.
Picaresque, but with serious matters of faith, love, and political wrangling at its fast-beating heart.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780802162199
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
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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