A plot that carries no spare parts and a ``gentle reader'' style of address combine with Dickensian characters to give the feel of a classic to Harris's (Bang the Drum Slowly, 1956, etc.) small tale of a short story writer's struggle with an adversarial critic. Rimrose's career begins in 1963 at the college newspaper in University City where, following in his father's footsteps, he distinguishes himself with feisty reporting and parlous editorials and eventually earns a promotion to editor-in-chief. On discovering in his junior year that he is a short story writer at heart, Rimrose disappoints his practical dad by scrapping his budding journalism career for art. After graduation he marries classmate Lucy, and the two toil as writer and agent/editor, respectively, while hungry children amass as quickly as bills. Rimrose's critical successes—like being heralded by Esquire as a bright new talent and having his old college stories turned into a book—are not matched by financial ones. His fame is monitored and envied by Kakapick, the black-toothed, friendless hallmate of his college years whose confusion between truth and fiction cause him to stalk Lucy and whose quasi-Fascist plan to set standards for American literature is unwittingly facilitated by Rimrose. Kakapick's menace increases as his power does: He becomes chair of the English department at The University and hires Rimrose, who needs the steady salary. A struggle between the two mounts as the critic employs academic mind-police strategies to keep the writer's fame and output under his thumb. The novel abounds in satirical insights into the natures of the creative mind, writing, editing, publishing, and criticism. A wry, self-referential story that exalts the writer, trounces the critic, and avows that both are liars. Sic semper Mark Harris.
Pub Date: June 20, 1994
ISBN: 1-55611-397-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1994
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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