A charming, engrossing, profound exploration of the transformative power of stories.
A monk’s tales of adaptation and awe, of humans and the more-than-human.
Sangsuk’s novel, translated from the Thai by Poopoksakul, introduces us to a nonagenarian monk named Luang Paw Tien, who shares fantastical accounts of jungle life in Thailand before his village’s transition to large-scale farming and urban development. An eccentric and charismatic figure, Luang Paw Tien has retained a childlike wonder into old age and is beloved by the children who listen to his storytelling. A repository of traditional knowledge, he tells them of “a time when human settlements had been something foreign, and their accompanying fields, orchards, farms and paddies foreign land.” The present, we learn, has fallen under “the shadow of decline and deterioration,” which includes the imaginative banality of modern commercial life. But Luang Paw Tien’s stories—full of sensuously rich descriptions of a teeming ecosystem’s flora and fauna and of the humans who merely inhabit rather than dominate it—conjure a world of enchanted life and captivating mystery. Elephants, tigers, monkeys, boars, snakes, crocodiles, and bats take their place as charismatic protagonists here, often in tales with supernatural dimensions. Routine human practices such as hunting or rice farming are rendered evocatively and take on their own mythic significance. The novel’s extraordinary climax arrives with Luang Paw Tien’s account of how he became a monk through a terrifying battle with a demonic beast, whose assault begins with the killing of an ox: “I followed the prints, and the bloody marks around them, which seemed to grow bigger and bigger and more intensely red, and a chill ran down my spine when I saw them joined by the paw prints of a tiger, which suddenly materialized on top of and among [the ox’s] hoofprints.” This is a captivating and delightful work.
A charming, engrossing, profound exploration of the transformative power of stories.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781646052752
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Deep Vellum
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 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
A wistfully nostalgic look at endings, beginnings, and loving the people who will always have your back.
Exes pretend they’re still together for the sake of their friends on their annual summer vacation.
Wyn Connor and Harriet Kilpatrick were the perfect couple—until Wyn dumped Harriet for reasons she still doesn’t fully understand. They’ve been part of the same boisterous friend group since college, and they know that their breakup will devastate the others and make things more than a little awkward. So they keep it a secret from their friends and families—in fact, Harriet barely even admits it to herself, focusing instead on her grueling hours as a surgical resident. She’s ready for a vacation at her happy place—the Maine cottage she and her friends visit every summer. But (surprise!) Wyn is there too, and he and Harriet have to share a (very romantic) room and a bed. Telling the truth about their breakup is out of the question, because the cottage is up for sale, and this is the group’s last hurrah. Determined to make sure everyone has the perfect last trip, Harriet and Wyn resolve to fake their relationship for the week. The problem with this plan, of course, is that Harriet still has major feelings for Wyn—feelings that only get stronger as they pretend to be blissfully in love. As always, Henry’s dialogue is sparkling and the banter between characters is snappy and hilarious. Wyn and Harriet’s relationship, shown both in the past and the present, feels achingly real. Their breakup, as well as their complicated relationships with their own families, adds a twinge of melancholy, as do the relatable growing pains of a group of friends whose lives are taking them in different directions.
A wistfully nostalgic look at endings, beginnings, and loving the people who will always have your back.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9780593441275
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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