A dazzling collection of stories covering rough emotional terrain.
Lancelotta chronicles life’s dissatisfactions in this short fiction collection.
A pregnant teen and her boyfriend hit the road with a bag of stolen cash to build a life for themselves and their imminent child, unaware of how migratory and lonely that life will be for all three of them. A married mother with a teenage daughter gets caught up in the memories of her own youth, particularly of her brother’s terminal disease and the peculiar pressures it put on her and her friends. A woman caring for her rapidly declining husband can’t help but resent her parents, wealthy octogenarians in perfect health. A baker reflects on her relationship with a much older man who remains devastated by the maiming of his piano-playing son. In these 15 stories, the author explores the many ways that life can go off course, whether from small miscalculations made long ago or small acts of cruelty committed in the present. “Those birthdays,” rues one narrator, caught up in the cycling years of her life; “by the thirty-fifth the slide had started, merrily relentless; the march and tick of indifference even though my hair was still shiny my legs still long my mouth still warm and wet” (“A Little Mercy”). Lancelotta's sentences read like poetry, as here in the opener about the pregnant teenage couple: “The traffic light at the intersection flashes yellow and the spindly pines stab black at the resting sky and where they are is the beating heart of everything waiting for them. They believe this. They are too young not to” (“You Are Here”). These stories masterfully evoke life’s inevitable slippage, the way a personal history is composed of moments that either burn brightly in one’s memory or disappear entirely. Standout pieces include “The Anniversary Trip” and “Ambivalence,” but every story here deserves to be read slowly and carefully, with time allotted to recover in between.
A dazzling collection of stories covering rough emotional terrain.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 978-1573662017
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Fiction Collective 2
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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