A humorous and compelling domestic tale about a man pushed to the edge.
A disgraced insurance salesman becomes the neighborhood spy in this comic novel.
When his 10-year-old nephew, Benny, is struck by a hit-and-run driver, Charlie Doyle immediately jumps into action. Unfortunately, Charlie is drunk and isn’t making the best decisions. When he gets Benny to the hospital, the boy has suffered substantial brain damage. Why didn’t Charlie just call an ambulance and let the professionals handle it? That’s what his neighbors begin to whisper about—and whether it was drunk Charlie who hit Benny in the first place. Following the accident, Charlie’s life begins to spiral out of control. He quits his job at an insurance agency, suspects that his wife may be cheating on him with his brother-in-law, and learns that his 18-year-old daughter, Velijah, was recently arrested for stealing booze from a liquor store. Then a sinkhole opens up and ruins Thanksgiving dinner. Charlie gets a job with a different insurance company—a lot of other sinkholes have opened up in the neighborhood—but his mission is actually to prevent people from collecting on their policies. When Charlie embarks on this unethical scheme with his new neighbor, blackmailer Effie Malfeezian, he also hopes to discover who exactly hit Benny. If he can figure out who did it, he may be able to clear his name and fix his family—and maybe even forgive himself. Smith’s (Scabland, 2017) prose walks the fine line between realism and slight absurdity, fashioning intriguingly odd scenarios. “What I’d like you to do, as a Secret Insurance Agent, is watch people,” explains Tammy Williams, Charlie’s handler. “Gather information. Even on people we’ve already paid out claims to on other matters. I want to know where our money is going. And where it’s not going.” The novel ends up in some unexpected (and slightly unbelievable) places, but the author constructs his world with enough logic and detail that readers will be happy to accompany him into the extraordinary. The result is a dark satire of suburban life reminiscent at times of Tom Perrota and A.M. Holmes.
A humorous and compelling domestic tale about a man pushed to the edge.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-08-659635-9
Page Count: 418
Publisher: Out Reach Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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