Not only a first novel, but a first by a now-18-year-old writer—yet, surprisingly, this tale of a young woman's grief over the death of her artist husband tugs at the heartstrings with the best of them. Gloria Burgess was an unhappy child, with a mother frustrated at having to sacrifice a music career to raise her and a father who liked to pretend that Gloria was the reincarnation of a childhood sweetheart he'd loved and lost. Happiness came easily as an adult, though, when Gloria met and fell in love with London-based artist Bill Burgess, married him and had a child. She is 30 before tragedy strikes, taking her happiness away for good, it seems. Bill is diagnosed with leukemia, and Gloria must stand by helplessly as the best man she has ever known sickens and dies. Left alone after the funeral, she somehow manages to parent her eight-year-old son, carry on at her teaching job, and find a reason to live. Help comes in the form of her mother, who's anxious to atone for her mistakes, and, more interestingly, from Jascha Kremsky, an artist acquaintance of Bill's who wants Gloria's permission to stage a retrospective of Bill's work. As Gloria and Jascha work together on the show, he's able to share with her his own experience of grieving. His support and friendship see Gloria through the darkest hours until she feels ready to take up her life again. Crowell wrote this novel while finishing her senior year of high school. Its derivative tone, a minor defect from an author so young, subtracts very little from its fully-developed characters and maturity of content. A highly promising debut. (First printing of 150,000; film rights to Sony; Book-of-the-Month Club selection; $150,000 ad/promo)
Pub Date: March 10, 1997
ISBN: 0-399-14252-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1996
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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