A precise, unsettling (if somewhat overlong) study of loss and duplicity. Cameron, the author of several well-received novels (The Weekend, 1994, etc.) and story collections (Far Flung, 1991, etc.), sets this terse work in the tiny country of Andorra, a mountainous, pocket-sized nation wedged between France and Spain. Alex Fox, his disaffected narrator, arrives there fleeing some at first unspecified horror, and finds the carefully ordered, slightly eccentric society of Andorra to be both enticing and soothing. He falls in with the Dents, a handsome, charming Australian couple who, separately, set out to seduce him. And he in turn begins to pursue the beautiful, hesitant Jean Quay, a young woman who seems to be locked in a constant struggle to suppress some disturbing incident in her past. Cameron deftly introduces a grim subtext to Alex's amours: The bodies of several men, strangled to death, wash up on a nearby beach. Ricky Dent disappears, and his frantic wife and a coolly charming policeman both wonder whether Alex has had something to do with it. Dent reappears but, convinced that he will be arrested for the murders, flees. Alex, who had come to Andorra looking for the solace of anonymity, allows himself to drift into an affair with the not-terribly-distraught Mrs. Dent and to entertain the idea of settling down with Jean. But things quickly go wrong. Alex, protesting his innocence, becomes the police's prime suspect in the murders. He isn't guilty, but an even more horrendous crime in his past spurs him to attempt to flee. That crime is revealed only at the last, and Cameron does a very deft job of gradually peeling away the seeming charm of the place and its inhabitants to uncover some nasty secrets underneath. While the pace occasionally lags toward the climax, Cameron's sly, complex characters, wonderfully intelligent dialogue, and masterful pacing combine to create a cumulatively powerful tale of the unforgiving workings of fate. (First printing of 25,000; author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-374-10505-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1996
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
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
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