Originally published in 1987 and therefore predating the fragmentation of Yugoslavia and subsequent civil war: a brooding, curiously prescient saga from journalist and novelist Tima (The Use of Man, 1988) of a Holocaust survivor—a dreaded Kapo in Auschwitz, still living in mortal terror of exposure decades after coming home. Lamian, now a slovenly old man, is also a loner with a lifetime of keeping a low profile, thanks to his bestial activities as a guard under the watchful eye of the Nazis. Not overly fond of killing fellow Jews, he nevertheless found a reward in his position above and beyond that of mere survival. With the approval of the camp commandant, he brought a series of female prisoners into a secret corner of the toolshed, there to bait them with morsels of food in exchange for sex until he wearied of them and left them to their fate. Years later, learning by chance that one of his favorites, Helena Lifka, was not a foreigner but a Yugoslavian Jew like himself, his ever-present paranoia reaches a fever pitch, leaving him no rest until he tracks her down. With his physical health deteriorating and his grip on reality diminishing until he can do nothing without being reminded of his unforgivable past, Lamian finds her; after a night with a prostitute in which he does nothing but observe her sleeping, he decides to reveal himself to Helena, only to learn that he has mistaken her cousin for her, and that she died several months before. A probing, exceptional study of a man as both victim and tormentor, and more—Lamian's coldblooded yet fevered attitude reflects many of the same barbaric impulses now tearing Tima's country apart.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-15-146693-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1993
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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