Effective at moments. But, for the most part, the telling is long and the showing short; not much happens, and when it does,...
A soft-spoken, unenergetic narrative of grief, anger and forgiveness.
Megan Van Dorn, nearing her 50s, has found fulfillment in late motherhood; life in her Midwestern suburb is good, and she even seems to enjoy spending hours in an ergonomic chair in an accounting office. Then tragedy strikes: Her bright, pleasant son is killed in an automobile accident. The offending driver is Megan’s childhood friend Cindy Ann Kreisler, who, it seems, has a drinking problem but who manages to avoid a Breathalyzer test until a couple of hours after the crash, and even then “her blood alcohol level . . . was barely within Wisconsin’s legal limit.” In depicting all this, novelist and memoirist Ansay (Limbo, 2001, etc.) is matter-of-fact, at a seeming remove from her characters. When Cindy Ann is acquitted with a slap-on-the-wrist punishment, Megan finds herself “terrible in my anger: strong, and fierce, and righteous. I could have led an army”; yet the reader doesn’t ever feel much of this anger, for Megan’s narration is flat and without affect, and her discovery of “the sheer cathartic power of . . . rage” is evidenced mostly by the fact that she sets a lawyer loose on Cindy Ann while she and her near-perfect husband, Rex, fulfill his dream of setting sail to the Caribbean. A year passes, and Megan, who returns home from time to time to attend to household matters, finds her rage slowly dissipating at the sight of poor Cindy Ann, who has hit rock-bottom and seems not to know how to climb up again. What to do? Well, Rex has taken to hitting the bottle himself, and to his irritation, Megan acts on that sense of pity, all of which has—well, consequences.
Effective at moments. But, for the most part, the telling is long and the showing short; not much happens, and when it does, it seldom moves.Pub Date: May 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-688-17287-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.
A very funny novel about the survivor of a childhood trauma.
At 29, Eleanor Oliphant has built an utterly solitary life that almost works. During the week, she toils in an office—don’t inquire further; in almost eight years no one has—and from Friday to Monday she makes the time go by with pizza and booze. Enlivening this spare existence is a constant inner monologue that is cranky, hilarious, deadpan, and irresistible. Eleanor Oliphant has something to say about everything. Riding the train, she comments on the automated announcements: “I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon.” Eleanor herself might as well be from Ulan Bator—she’s never had a manicure or a haircut, worn high heels, had anyone visit her apartment, or even had a friend. After a mysterious event in her childhood that left half her face badly scarred, she was raised in foster care, spent her college years in an abusive relationship, and is now, as the title states, perfectly fine. Her extreme social awkwardness has made her the butt of nasty jokes among her colleagues, which don’t seem to bother her much, though one notices she is stockpiling painkillers and becoming increasingly obsessed with an unrealistic crush on a local musician. Eleanor’s life begins to change when Raymond, a goofy guy from the IT department, takes her for a potential friend, not a freak of nature. As if he were luring a feral animal from its hiding place with a bit of cheese, he gradually brings Eleanor out of her shell. Then it turns out that shell was serving a purpose.
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2068-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
