by A.B. Hollingsworth ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2004
Well-meaning but clueless (like its hero) and—unless you’re fascinated by arcane details of frat life—interminable.
The college fraternity as a metaphor for life.
In his sentimental, nostalgic sequel to Flatbellies (2003, not reviewed), Hollingsworth follows the college career of Oklahoma high-school golf star Chipper DeHart. Entering the University of Oklahoma in 1967, Chipper pledges Sigma Zeta Chi, drawn by its stated Christian values, and quickly rises in the frat’s ranks. His less presentable friend Peach bribes his way into SZC along with his new friend Larry Twohatchet, the chapter’s first Native American. All three are golfers, as is Smokey Ray Devine, a Shakespeare-spouting deep thinker who remains a loyal frat brother even as he toys with hippiedom, SDS, and hallucinatory drugs. With Vietnam and social upheavals in the background, the fraternity, under Chipper’s earnest leadership, begins to modernize, but first Chipper and his friends must defeat stereotypical frat bad boys who represent prejudice and narrow-mindedness. Chipper’s shallow niceness becomes grating after a while, but his superachieving girlfriend Amy is just as annoying in her perfection: the perfectly coifed sorority sister and sweetheart of SZC, she is also working her way through college in premed, hosting Gloria Steinam at the behest of her women’s studies professor, and founding a women’s golf team. Chipper inadvertently has a bad drug experience, listens to a lot of Three Dog Night, worries about fighting in Vietnam (if not the moral implications), and leads his fraternity to win various campus competitions. Robert Kennedy is assassinated, a black pledge is blackballed (Chipper disagrees but doesn’t quit), and a crazed Jesus freak burns down the frat house. Still, the fraternity’s spirit never breaks. By the time they meet again, 15 years after graduation at the funeral of their pledge class guide, who has died of AIDS, Chipper and his friends have married their college sweethearts and found success in worthwhile careers.
Well-meaning but clueless (like its hero) and—unless you’re fascinated by arcane details of frat life—interminable.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-393-32421-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2004
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by Nora Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 1995
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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