Easy entertainment, from a still-imitative writer who may grow.
Berlin debuts with a deft but conventional tale of youth and anger, in a fictional house of toughness resting on a thin psychological foundation.
Dess (short for Odessa) Rose went to college on a wrestling scholarship but blew everything when, after losing a match, he attacked his opponent with a chair. Trigger-tempered Dess got his diploma, but only cloaked in shame, and when we meet him he’s living in Manhattan, parking cars in a garage, and picking barfights—in which he brutalizes, throws, tromps, and smashes his victims, then runs hard through the night until he gets “it” out of him. The “it” is apparently rage he’s stored up from a life of triple woe: having academic parents who think he should do more with himself than wrestle; having a nerdy kid brother praised for straight A’s; and having had a Russian immigrant grandfather who was also a fighter and, via fist and brawn, did legendary good deeds for his grateful family. Sensing no such gratitude now, the strong, angry, wound-licking Dess is the perfect sidekick needed by cousin Gary Rose, the 400-pounder, professional gambler, and other family failure who stops by the garage and talks Dess into heading for Vegas, that very night, via Jaguar. As the two drive cross-country day and night, they reminisce about family and childhood, while gradually the deep trouble Gary’s in comes clear: guaranteed special treatment by thugs if, at the blackjack tables, he can’t earn back a huge debt very fast. Dess is a quick learner at counting cards, a code is agreed on, and the two work the tables, waiting—and waiting—for the “streak” Gary is sure will come. There will be fear, sex, suspense—and mountains of food eaten by Gary at the free buffets—before an ending that will doubtless rivet some while sweeping others back to the popcorn palaces of their youth.
Easy entertainment, from a still-imitative writer who may grow.Pub Date: May 12, 2000
ISBN: 1-56512-266-6
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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