A worthwhile, though a bit overwritten, American story about family, friendship and hard work.
Tradition and progress collide in this novel about a steelworker’s daughter trying to find her way in the world.
When Fox’s debut opens, Belle Reinker’s life is defined by the West-Penn steel mill, Squirreltown, W.V.’s major employer. Belle’s father and her husband, Mike, both work at the mill, and Belle is the secretary of the union. But when the mill refuses to renew its contract with the union and the workers go on strike, Belle knows it signals the beginning of the end for the mill. To her family’s dismay, Belle resigns from her position so she can find a new job, although Mike points out that “there ain’t any fancy jobs waiting for a woman that never finished high school.” Without telling her family, Belle takes out a second mortgage and sets up a shoeshine stand in a nearby hotel. Her business thrives, but her marriage is strained—particularly when a newspaper article about Belle’s business makes her work public, embarrassing Mike and their teenage son. As Belle expands her business, Mike negotiates with the head of the mill about a tax abatement that might keep the mill in town—at the expense of the area’s schools. When the abatement and the union’s support of it become public, the town turns into “a tinderbox of an angrily divided polity.” Belle becomes a leader of the anti–tax abatement movement, along with handsome new arrival Terry Kellerman. Belle’s professional and political transformation deepens the wedge between her and her husband, perhaps moving her into Terry’s arms. Belle’s work against the abatement is only the beginning of her advocacy for her hometown, however, and she helps Squirreltown transform through conservation, new homes and tourism. But the former head of the mill decides to run for political office so he can facilitate new development—i.e., strip malls and low-income housing—in Squirrel Valley. Can Belle stop this new enemy and preserve Squirreltown once and for all? Fox succeeds in bringing the town to life and deftly establishes the conflict between the forces that divide it. Unfortunately, the multifaceted premise is sometimes undermined by awkward writing. Even though Fox emphasizes that his characters are direct straight shooters, he sprinkles pretentious vocabulary throughout the story. Mill workers nurse their beers in “tenebrous saloons,” a planned lodge is hailed as “cynosure of the entire valley,” and the old steel mill is “fuliginous.” In most cases, simpler language would have enhanced the story.
A worthwhile, though a bit overwritten, American story about family, friendship and hard work.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1484089804
Page Count: 238
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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