The Good War

In Costello’s dark and intense debut, a family grapples with disturbing secrets during and after WWII. Louise, beautiful and intelligent, abandons her ambition to be the next Marie Curie when she marries Roland, her brother’s West Point roommate, and has four children in quick succession. During the war, Louise finds work at a Lockheed plant in Los Angeles, moving up from the assembly line to design airplane wings. Her father, brother, and husband all die serving in the Pacific. By 1948, the widowed Louise is embittered and drinking heavily, leaving her live-in mother to babysit while she works as a biochemist in Bethesda, Md. Kit Blunt, a volatile amputee and fellow POW whom Roland confided in, arranges to meet her in a bar, and they begin a stormy affair. A parallel narrative set in 1964 New York City follows Louise’s daughter, Charlotte, a book editor whose paralyzing night terrors interfere with her prestigious career. Lyrical passages depict Louise and Charlotte grappling with Roland’s death and revelations about Louise’s childhood that explain Charlotte’s painful memories of her own early years. Moody and atmospheric, this gritty tale is worth a look. (Jan.)