by Marya Hornbacher ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2005
Memoirist Hornbacher (Wasted, 1988) dilutes the impact of her sensitively told story through overdoses of cuteness and...
A poignant but soft-centered debut novel about family loss and survival.
In rural Minnesota, Kate (6) and Esau (12) grow up aware of mental illness in their family. Their aunt committed suicide, her history pointing forward to the story’s twin axes. Their father, Arnold, has forsaken work for a life of drinking, and Esau is having “episodes” that deepen to delusional behavior, leading to his incarceration in State, the local mental hospital. Under this pressure, his parents’ originally satisfactory but now strained marriage cracks. At Christmas, after an unhappy visit to Esau, Arnold shoots himself. His widow, Claire, takes Kate and spends a while with her surprisingly supportive in-laws. She isn’t ready to tell Esau of his father’s death, or to enter the room where it happened. But as spring arrives, Esau is strong enough to come home and be told the truth. The narration is shared among Kate, Claire, and Esau, and we learn of the boy’s unusually tolerable time at State: colorful but endearing inmates, kindly staff. At home again, he struggles to be well, aided by preternaturally helpful Kate. Together, the two support Claire, who is relying on drink and her friendship with Donna—the mother of Kate’s best friend—to get through. Claire and Donna discuss weak husbands and failing marriages, subjects Donna understands, being married to Dale, an unhappy Korean War vet who has also taken to drink. One exception to this run of weak, dissolute males is Frank, the local bar-owner, who possesses both a library and a button collection. He and Claire begin to date, causing some anxiety among the children. Donna is also seeing another man, creating greater anxiety in Dale. On the night Claire consummates her relationship with Frank, Dale commits suicide too. But Kate’s epilogue reveals a happier future for her family.
Memoirist Hornbacher (Wasted, 1988) dilutes the impact of her sensitively told story through overdoses of cuteness and foreboding.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-019226-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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