This collection introduces to fiction a 50ish newcomer who's previously written four children's books and worked as a literary agent. The experience shows. Divided into three neat sections, these stories place Thomas in the coterie of popular female authors that includes Alice Adams, Mary Gordon, Alice Hoffman, and Bobbie Ann Mason. Part One concerns children from charmingly dysfunctional families. The settings and values of the 1950s are captured to perfection, as when the shamed, divorced, or never-married mothers whose teenage children apply too much makeup are juxtaposed with neighbors who have turned their basements into rec rooms in ``1957.'' The four stories in the second section depict women's boredom during roughly the same time period. All revolve around Virginia, thrown out of college the moment she became pregnant, attempting to adjust to her husband and his friends. In these low-key pieces we meet characters already defeated. As the experienced ex- girlfriend puts it: ``The thing about being married is you spend all day waiting for your husband to come home and when he does, it's no big deal.'' But these losers at times show endearingly zany sides—Buddy, for example, draws with magic marker on Virginia's huge stomach. If the middle decades of this century were repressed, all hell breaks loose in the 1980s (Part Three). Enter Louise, a sex-crazed woman approaching menopause, mother of four, twice divorced, who sets her sights continually on the wrong men: a dentist who wishes only to cap her teeth, a 20-year- old construction worker, a former lover, a drug dealer/street musician she barely knows. The only disappointing piece is the final, title story. Here Louise loses her human traits and becomes a gimmicky muse stand-in, telling the writer what to say, or interrupting to explain how it really happened. Despite the disconcerting finish, a powerful collection.
Pub Date: May 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-56512-024-8
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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