In this slim work, Pettersen writes with minimalist reticence—a remark here, a detail there—to create poignant lyricism.
This new translation of Norwegian author Petterson's first novel—about a 12-year-old Norwegian boy’s summer holiday with his working-class family—sets the stage for many of his later novels.
As Arvid Jansen arrives in Sweden by ferry, he shows genuine excitement at returning to the familiar yet slightly exotic homeland of his mother—the heroine of To Siberia (2008)—where his grandparents still live, but his pure joy won’t last. Arvid appeared as a younger, generally happy child in Pettersen’s debut short story collection, Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes (2014). Here the tone is less coming-of-age than loss of innocence. Over the summer, Arvid’s awareness of adult issues and his own complex feelings grow and darken. With disgust he watches the attraction between his slightly older sister, Gry, and his friend Mogens blossom into teen romance. Arvid himself sees a couple making love at the beach and later has an unsettling, vaguely sexual interaction with the woman involved. Digging into the secrets surrounding his grandparents, Arvid becomes closer to his mother as he learns the facts behind the death of her beloved brother Jesper (also important in To Siberia), whom he resembles. On the other hand, he goes from allowing his father to hold his hand in public to ignoring his attempts at conversation to outright hostility. While the ending stirs a sense of dread about Arvid’s immediate future, readers of the subsequent, melancholic Arvid novels already translated into English know that he grows up to become a successful if tortured writer; those readers will be fascinated by how Pettersen has knowingly or unknowingly planted the seeds of the later works here, including the importance of boats, Arvid’s interest in American literature, and his horror of divorce.
In this slim work, Pettersen writes with minimalist reticence—a remark here, a detail there—to create poignant lyricism.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64445-076-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.
Three siblings on very different paths learn that their family home may be haunted by secrets.
Eldest daughter Beth is alone with her fading mother as she takes her final breath and says something about Beth’s long-departed brother and sister, who may not have disappeared forever. Beth is still reeling from the loss of her mother when her estranged siblings show up. Michael, the youngest, hasn’t been home since their father’s disappearance seven years ago. In the meantime, he’s outgrown his siblings, trading his share of the family troubles for a high-paying job in San Jose. Nicole, the middle child, has been overpowered by addiction and prioritized tuning out reality over any sense of responsibility, much to Beth’s disgust. Though their mother’s death marks an ending for the family, it’s also a beginning, as the three siblings realize when they find a disturbing videotape among their parents’ belongings. The video, from 1999, sheds suspicion on their father’s disappearance, linking it to a long-unsolved neighborhood mystery. Was it just a series of unfortunate circumstances that broke the family apart, or does something more sinister underlie the sadness they’ve all found in life? In chapters that rotate among the family’s first-person narratives, the siblings take turns digging up stories and secrets in their search for solace.
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798212182843
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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