Reams of furnishings detail and messy family histrionics.
Kitschy, quaintly amusing Italian-American saga from Trigiani (Lucia, Lucia, 2003, etc.).
The endearing narrator is Batholomeo di Crespi, known as “B,” a bachelor decorator in the upscale New Jersey town of Our Lady of Fatima (or OLOF), circa 1970. His exquisite taste in fabrics and décor have made B well respected in OLOF; he’s decorated all the important houses, from his divorced older sister’s Georgian manor to Aurelia Mandelbaum’s mansion. Aurelia’s myopic daughter Capri, still living at home at age 40, has been B’s unofficial fiancée for 20 years, but this was their mothers’ idea, not theirs. B avoids the messiness of romantic relationships, preferring to spend his time making the world elegant: “The rococo period where French design and Italian flair came together make my heart leap for joy.” At the moment, he’s got his eye trained nostalgically on the restoration of the town’s Catholic church. Once he wrests the commission away from a fancy New York firm, B is faced with the scary task of having to turn his vision into reality. Conveniently, he meets a fancy Park Avenue architect and historian, Eydie Von Gunne, who specializes in churches and can recommend expert craftsmen. But first, B soothes his artistic crisis with a trip to England, where he buys Monica Vitti’s chandelier, and then to Italy with Capri, who decides to live a little in spite of him. B embarks on the church restoration with the help of Brooklyn’s noted fresco painter Rufus McSherry, who urges him to be daring rather than conventional. Resourceful B even saves the day by raising the last-minute money for the church’s final stage. Trigiani’s story manages to transcend its fluffiness by virtue of her unique and winning protagonist, the determinedly single B, who loves his family but resists the pressure to make one of his own.
Reams of furnishings detail and messy family histrionics.Pub Date: June 28, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-6007-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2005
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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