A delicious but sometimes disappointing retelling of the legendary page-turner.
From an American writer (My Year with the Stork Club, 1993, etc.) yet published first in Britain: a wickedly clever and
witty reworking of Du Maurier's famous novel, a takeoff that falters only when Rebecca herself appears. The richly allusive story narrated by Amy, a writer and widow of a young man who committed suicide, not only reinterprets the familiar narrative but offers as an engaging subtext a sharp-eyed satire of British literary and country-house life. Freely's beginning echoes the original as Amy relates the dream in which she returns to the now burned-down Beckfield and is prompted to tell her tale. She describes how on Mallorca she met the famous writer and critic Max Midwinter, while acting as rich Mrs. Van Hopper's companion. Max, as handsome and moody as his predecessor, soon proposes marriage, and the smitten Amy accepts. The two fly back to England to meet Max's family. This wealthy family and household, however, are not quite the same as Manderley's. Nor is the late Rebecca, Max’s first wife. Max has two children, and the housekeeper, Danny, unlike the sinister Mrs. Danvers, is relentlessly perky and into analysis and tarot cards. She is also the keeper of the flame—that is, the late Rebecca's literary flame: Freely's Rebecca was an American poet famous for her novel The Marriage Hearse, which made her a feminist icon. Amy regarded it then as the thinly disguised autobiography of a sensitive woman "driven to the edge by her husband and his powerful family"; soon after its publication Rebecca disappeared in Caribbean waters, an apparent suicide. While Amy struggles to adjust to Max's eccentric family, his children's hostility, and his own destructive behavior, she also tries to learn the truth about Rebecca. Which she does, though the denouement is neither as chilling nor convincing as Du Maurier's.
A delicious but sometimes disappointing retelling of the legendary page-turner.Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-89733-477-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Academy Chicago
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2000
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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