A well-told tale of an early-20th-century woman’s quest for liberation.
In Durham’s (Tides of Grace, 2012) latest historical novel, a free-spirited young woman with a tarnished past rubs elbows with turn-of-the-century Broadway big shots.
In the wake of a scandalous teenage affair with her teacher, 22-year-old Grace realizes that she may never lead the conventional life expected of a young lady in 1910s St. Louis. But she refuses to accept the sealed fate of a tainted woman. After Grace marries Ray Dobbins, a young, ambitious theater manager, she embarks on an exciting new life as a secretary for notorious Broadway theater executive J.J. Shubert in New York City. Grace is shocked and delighted by her ability to travel through New York unescorted, and she soon finds that there are plenty of other freedoms afforded young city women. Adult readers who grew up enamored with L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables are likely to fall instantly in love with Grace. Her quest to find herself socially, professionally and sexually mirrors the lives of many modern 20-somethings. (However, her struggles with a “dark angel” are somewhat underexplained.) This second book of a planned sextet awkwardly attempts to integrate the vast back story from the previous novel and, as a result, feels disjointed at points, but it nonetheless manages to stand alone as a self-contained story. Broadway fans may delight in the novel’s insight into the real lives of theater bigwigs such as Shubert and Irving Berlin; their stories provide a window into the glamorous and sometimes-salacious side of an era known for its conservatism. As such, Durham delicately approaches the theme of Grace’s sexuality in a way that captures the timid naïveté of a turn-of-the-century woman while also acknowledging his readers’ modern values.
A well-told tale of an early-20th-century woman’s quest for liberation.Pub Date: April 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1460209073
Page Count: 192
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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