stand still

Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

Genre: historical fiction

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Review: Children who were sent to the British countryside during the Blitz were able to come when it seemed like the nightly airstrikes were over.  Children who were sent to America may have had to stay for the duration of the war.  Some were lucky, like Beatrix, who became a true part of the Gregory family for the five years she lived with them.  This section of the book is engaging and heartwarming.

Unfortunately, once Bea leaves the Gregory family, though, the narrative falters.  Instead of being continuous, the story leaps through the next 30 years, landing only in 1951, 1960-1965, and, in an Epilogue, 1977.  Although this satisfies a reader's desire to find out what happen's next in the life of a good character (which Bea is), the jumping around causes us to lose our connection with Bea.

Still, Spence-Ash's writing is solid and the foundation that is set up in the first part of the book is strong enough to carry us through to a satisfying, if not altogether unexpected ending.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

stick to the fictional

Up With the Sun by Thomas Mallon

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Genre: historical fiction

Review: Mallon, author of such previous gems as Bandbox and Dewey Defeats Truman, seems to be confusing writing with name-dropping lately.  In his loosely connected Republican Apologist trilogy, the names are members of the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 43 administrations.  Here, the names are from show business in the 1950s-1970s.  And while I appreciate that one of the names he drops is that of my own cousin, The Last of the Red Hot Mamas, Sophie Tucker, I know that most people these days have never heard of her, nor of many of the other players who come and go through this book.

The story centers around the life and murder of Dick Kallman, a never-star of stage and screen, who most people have also never heard of, and, harsh as it sounds to say this, probably won't care much about.  Mallon portrays him as a shallow, callow, unethical, and more to the point for the main character of a novel, uninteresting.

The more interesting character is the purely fictional Matt Liannetto, who knew Dick sporadically through his acting career, and who was one of the last people to see him alive.  Through him, we see the both the law and the order aspect of bringing Dick's killers to justice, which is somewhat compelling, in a macabre way.  Matt himself is just a more interesting character, and I wish Mallon had just written a book about him, and made Dick Kallman a footnote to his story.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.