Shining Sea

Starred review from September 5, 2016
This absorbing generational story, which follows the Gannon family from WWII to the present, explores complex dynamics and captures the mood of different decades in America. Korkeakivi's cogent insight into family relationships and the impact of personal loss, as well as how the times we live in effect who we are, shines through. The book opens with an affecting scene in which the patriarch, Michael Gannon, 43 years old and a survivor of the Bataan Death March, realizes that he's having a heart attack. The viewpoint shifts to his beleaguered widow, Barbara, left caring for their four children with a fifth on the way, and then to the troubled Francis, the youngest son, who can never escape the shadows of his heroic father's life and death and, later, his best friend's suicide. Each character's story is rich and excellently crafted: Barbara's practical second marriage five years after her husband's untimely death, plagued with a problem she refuses to recognize; eldest daughter Patty Ann's struggle with a string of loser husbands and the heartbreaking choices she makes to survive; Francis's wanderlust as he lives day-to-day to escape his past, following whims across continents that eventually place him in life-threatening circumstances. In the end, Korkeakivi (An Unexpected Guest) seamlessly brings her themes full circleâheroism, the importance of family, and giving back to the worldâall of which would have made Michael Gannon very proud.

June 1, 2016
A panoramic novel tracing generations of the Gannon family illuminates the aftershocks of war in the 20th century.When Michael Gannon, war hero and devout Catholic, husband to Barbara, father to Mike Jr., Luke, Francis, Patty Ann, and soon-to-be Sissy, dies on the front lawn of their yellow house in California, Barbara must learn to manage their lives without him. Predominately following Barbara and Francis, the novel ranges from 1962 to 2015; chapters sometimes jump months, other times decades, to offer snapshots of the family's progression. Barbara is remarried to Ronnie, a kind and loving but sexually evasive man. To save him from the draft, Patty Ann marries her high school boyfriend, a ne'er-do-well drug dealer, who leaves her with three children. When the situation becomes overwhelming, Barbara and Ronnie become legal guardians to Kennedy, Patty Ann's eldest son, and care for him even after her third marriage reinstates some stability. After the horrors of losing his father and then his lifelong best friend, Eugene, who killed himself, Francis is relentlessly on the run. But a transformative experience on a boat halfway between Ireland and Scotland leads him to write a hit song and retire, with his fragile wife, to a maple syrup farm in the hills between Massachusetts and Vermont. Characters are occasionally lost in the expanse--Patty Ann's other children are merely mentioned; we learn in passing that after a military stint, Mike Jr. ends up a doctor in Texas; Sissy has disappeared to Africa. Most important to Korkeakivi (An Unexpected Guest, 2012), it seems, is to communicate the damage war causes, not just physically and not just to soldiers, but emotionally and to families and communities everywhere. This damage underpins the novel; Luke is killed training for Vietnam, and the men who do return from battle do so with injuries that ultimately kill them--Michael's weakened heart, Eugene's psychological trauma. Everything works out a little too beautifully--despite the war-induced deaths--tipping the novel somewhat toward the maudlin, its moral toward platitudinous: "The thing about life is it is so damned confusing. Such a web, each piece of it dependent on something else, something that can be as tiny as a smile from a stranger or as huge as heart disease. The good all tangled up with the bad." Even so, the effortless prose and vining plot make for a winsome tale of kinship and growth. Endearing characters carry a sinuous story of family bonds.

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August 1, 2016

Korreakivi's second novel (following An Unexpected Guest, which was one of LJ's best bets among first novels for spring/summer 2012) spans several generations of the Gannon family and ties them to major historical events of the 20th century. World War II figures prominently in this family's narrative, and the Vietnam War also claims its casualties. After patriarch Michael dies suddenly at the novel's beginning (the result of his forced participation in the Bataan death march decades earlier), his death haunts his wife, Barbara, and their five children. They all take different paths than expected. Youngest son Francis is affected most dramatically and spends much of his life trying to find himself while traveling in Europe. VERDICT This novel is at its best when illuminating the damage that wars inflict physically and mentally on soldiers and their relations. At its worst, characters are not fully developed. The action plods across the decades as might be anticipated. Ultimately, the family's strife is brought to successful close, but that closure is safe, appealing, and rather reminiscent of movies of the week.--Faye Chadwell, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2016
Michael Gannon's death from a heart attack at age 43 appears to be a belated result of his years spent as a POW during WWII. As his widow, Barbara; sons Mike Jr., Luke, and Francis; and daughters Patty Ann and on-the-way Sissy cope with his death, the aftermath of that war and the one just beginning in Vietnam will impact their lives in unfathomable ways. Francis disappears into the haze of Woodstock and then vagabonds through Europe, Mike Jr. becomes a U.S. Army doctor, Luke is drafted, while Patty Ann hastily marries her drug-dealing boyfriend so that he won't have to serve. Eventually, Barbara remarries a kind but undemonstrative businessman. With a far-reaching plot that includes the military, the counterculture, marriage, parenthood, loss, and AIDS, and storytelling that couples pointed restraint with sweeping vision, Korkeakivi (An Unexpected Guest, 2012) covers the not-so-shining moments of the late twentieth century. The result is a family saga that explores the lingering effects of war and the elusive emotions of peace.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)