A notable debut by a writer who sees not only the spider but also the shining filaments that trap us.
Sixteen stories that, like contemporary fairy tales, disclose those bittersweet truths about life that hide in unlikely and grotesque disguises.
A writer engaged as much with the larger world as with the personal, Bender writes in stylish prose about men and women who want to live to the fullest but often find bizarre and unexpected obstacles in their way—obstacles that, while suggesting the tragic nature of existence, are often darkly comic also: In "Call My Name," a wealthy young woman spends an afternoon "auditioning men" only to find that the man she chooses prefers to watch television; in "Marzipan," a daughter’s mourning is discomposed when her mother comes back from the dead to share the leftover cake the family has kept in the freezer; and "The Rememberer," a man who’s worried that people think too much, experiences reverse evolution and finally becomes a salamander that his young lover reluctantly releases into the ocean. Meanwhile, the title piece tells of a father who forces his young daughter to wear a stone backpack that will make her sensitive to suffering; her sensitivity, however, becomes so overwhelming that she envies a girl whose flammable skirt caught on fire, because, however briefly, —her passion had arrived— and, unlike the narrator, she could feel freely. In other standouts, a woman falls in love with a robber who steals rings hidden in kitchen canisters from a rich opera-going householder ("The Ring"); a grieving librarian seduces her male patrons ("Quiet Please"); and a young woman finds it hard to love her wounded husband, who’s come back from war without his lips ("What You Left in the Ditch").
A notable debut by a writer who sees not only the spider but also the shining filaments that trap us. (First serial to Granta, GQ, and Story)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-49215-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
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
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
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