From Publishers Weekly
A cranky grandfather, a troubled teen, memories of World War II and a trip to the beaches of Normandy-in less talented hands, you'd have the mawkish recipe for a bad movie of the week, but Hull's smooth writing transforms this familiar material into a fast-moving, likable tale. Hull covers some of the same territory-the vicissitudes of old age, the bittersweet ache of memory and the horrors of war-as he did in his first novel, Losing Julia, but this time the focus is on the recently widowed Mead and his relationship with his grandson, 16-year-old Andrew. Andrew has just been kicked out of school for brandishing a penknife. His best friend, Matt, has killed himself and Andrew is thinking of doing the same. Mead suggests to his single-parent daughter, Sharon, that Andrew fly from Chicago to visit him in California for a three-week stay. Mead has little sympathy for teenage boys in general and not much more for his bleached-blond, earring-wearing, pants-dragging grandson. But both Mead and Andrew are intelligent and caring, and with the help of the attractive widow across the street, the two settle into a prickly rapprochement. After Andrew gets into more trouble, Mead decides the only way to save him is to take the boy on a tour of the WWII battlefields where he fought when he was a young man. Surely Andrew will then appreciate the advantages he should be enjoying and will straighten himself out. None of this works quite as Mead thinks it will, but secrets are revealed and truths both harsh and pleasant learned. Everyone, the reader included, is left with a newfound sense of hope and understanding.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Another nostalgic, romantic saga from the author of
Losing Julia (1999). Hull centers this one on an elderly man named Mead. Alone after his wife's death from cancer, the World War II vet is beset by bad dreams and unsettling memories. Soon, Mead finds himself spending lots of time with Andrew, his young, malcontented grandson. The pairing feels a bit forced at times, as when the older man decides to take Andrew on a trip to Europe in an effort to instill a sense a sense of perspective in the boy. "I'll take him to the museums and show him the palace and the Tower of London and tell him about the Blitz," Mead thinks to himself. It is a quaint notion, that a grandfather's history lesson would change a youngster's life, but the relationship ends up generating true drama in the form of a frightening near tragedy. Meantime, Hull's characters yield genuine insight into the lives of both the young and old.
Kevin CanfieldCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
