McCabe, as skilled and significant a novelist as Ireland has produced in decades, follows up 1993's acclaimed The Butcher Boy- -his third novel and American debut—with yet another savagely acerbic riff on the decay of modern life and the modern Irish. Malachy Dudgeon and Raphael Bell are as distant in age and attitude as they are morally removed from their prophet and angel namesakes. Malachy, the younger, coasts on his innocent wits while struggling with the trauma of his parents' loveless marriage that drove his father to suicide. Raphael, older by a generation, can't escape the memory of his own father's murder at the hands of Ireland's vicious Black and Tans. With no gentle irony, McCabe gives both men jobs in the same Catholic boys' school, St. Anthony's, where Raphael establishes a legendary reputation for himself as a principal who prizes discipline over progressive pedagogy, and where inexperienced teacher Malachy soon discovers that his hipster personality is no match for his horribly misbehaved students. Beaten like animals by the likes of Raphael, the boys of St. Anthony's have learned to attack at any sign of weakness. It isn't long before tragedy strikes (a student drowns) and Malachy gets sacked. At the same time, Raphael suffers his own trials: Hippie educational reformers are clamoring for his hide, and he's lost the support of the Catholic clergy. When Malachy's wife cheats on him with a rock guitarist, he lights out for London, where he swiftly degenerates into a dope fiend and derelict. Raphael remains in Dublin, but, following the death of his wife, he barricades himself in his house and starts The Dead School, delivering alcoholic lectures to phantom students while his deceased cat rots on the windowsill. At the close, McCabe recollides his characters in a brief and hilariously awkward showdown—and then permits things to become even worse. The big challenge for an Irish writer is to move in a new direction from the magisterial accomplishment of Joyce, Yeats, and Beckett, and to do it within the remarkable scope of Irish English. McCabe is the man.
Pub Date: April 26, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-31420-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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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