Richman flirts with some interesting issues of private priorities—family and love—versus the greater public good by showing...
Second-novelist Richman (The Mask of the Carver’s Son, 2000) pits political morality against personal loyalty as a Chilean exile in Sweden recovers slowly from being brutally kidnapped in retaliation by the Pinochet government.
Well-to-do Salome and working-class Octavio marry as students in Chile. Their lives revolve around poetry and romance until Octavio falls into a successful acting career that brings the couple and their children financial success but leaves Octavio spiritually empty. Then Pablo Neruda asks him to help Allende prepare his campaign for president. Apolitical Octavio can’t resist his idol Neruda, then finds himself drawn to Allende’s goals. Ironically, Salome, already impatient with what she considers her husband’s naiveté, is the one Pinochet’s men kidnap and torture to get even with Octavio after Allende’s fall. As soon she’s saved, thanks to Octavio’s intervention, the family receives asylum in Sweden. There, Salome begins therapy with Samuel, who specializes in post-traumatic stress syndrome. A French Jew whose parents never recovered from their survivors’ guilt after escaping to Peru during the war, Samuel is married to Kaija, whose Finnish parents sent her for adoption in Sweden to avoid their hardships during WWII. Samuel and Salome have a brief affair, which, for ethical reasons, Samuel ends, while Salome leaves Octavio and makes a life for herself. Samuel returns to Kaija, who has been distraught over her own secret, early menopause. Recommitted to Kaija, Samuel dies young of cancer. Twenty years later, Salome is approached to testify to the atrocities perpetrated against her and turns to Octavio for advice. Can she and Octavio rekindle their old love?
Richman flirts with some interesting issues of private priorities—family and love—versus the greater public good by showing both Salome and Octavio’s points of view, but ultimately the Nicholas Sparks–style sentimentality gets in the way.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2004
ISBN: 0-7434-7642-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2004
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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