A dirty-minded Holly Golightly invades modern Manhattan, in New York Press columnist Sohn’s interesting (if overdone) debut. “I was only twenty-two and already I was infamous,” says Ariel Steiner, who, like many young people, has an exaggerated notion of her own malevolence. Ariel is basically a nice Jewish girl, a JAP from Brooklyn who managed to get into Brown and carry home the fancy goyish diploma that would make Mama and Papa proud. An aspiring actress who has had an agent since about the time of her bat mitzvah, Ariel comes home with big plans for making a name on stage, but life has a way of slipping off our maps, and Ariel ends up making her name in quite a different direction. At an audition for a rock musical based on Lolita (“Lolita: Rock On”), she’s asked to write her own scene for rehearsal and responds with a rather vivid monologue entitled “Vanya in My Vulva,” followed up by a piece called “Shooting Wad and Movies.” The director is impressed enough to recommend publication, and Ariel submits her material to an alternative weekly called City Week. The next thing you know, Ariel has a weekly column (“Run Catch Kiss”) that treats her sex life with about as much irony as the teen mags extend to Leo DiCaprio and Prince Wills. Anyone who has read Sohn’s real-life column (—Female Trouble—) will recognize many of the boyfriends and positions described here in such loving detail, although this is not a rehash in the usual sense of the word. Rather, it is offered as a portrait of a woman on the loose, someone who hangs out at louche nightspots on the Lower East Side and obsesses about finding the perfect guy. If it all sounds like something of an insider’s story, it isn’t—though it’s probably meant to be. Strictly for the already converted: Sohn’s fans won’t be disappointed, but it’s unlikely that their ranks will swell.
Pub Date: July 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-85302-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
Agreeably credible lovers and a neat piece of home-restoration compensate some for the hokey hauntings on the bayou. Loyal...
A gumbo seasoned with ghosts, love, and murder on the bayou.
When 30-something Declan Fitzgerald of Boston, a successful lawyer and a member of a large and loving family, breaks off his engagement to very suitable Jessica, he knows he needs to change his life. Lawyering is not fun anymore, so, recalling Manet Hall, an old deserted plantation house he once visited with law school classmate and New Orleans native Remy, he buys the property and moves down south. Declan is also a gifted craftsman, a born decorator, and very, very rich. Soon, he meets beautiful Lena, who’s visiting her grandmother Odette, Declan’s friendly Cajun neighbor. Declan is as certain that Lena is destined to be his wife as he was that Manet Hall would become his home. But, surprise, Lena has a troubled past (like the house) and is determined to resist Declan’s courtship. While he suits Lena and works on the place, Declan experiences troubling dreams. It seems he’s actually reliving the novel’s parallel story, which took place in 1899. In that year, the maid, Abbey Manet (from whom Lena, coincidentally, is descended, and who married wealthy Lucian Manet), was raped and murdered by her brother-in-law Julian as she nursed her baby daughter. Her body was dumped into the bayou by her mother-in-law, who despised her. And grief-stricken husband Lucian, away at the time, being told that Abbey had run off, committed suicide. Now, in an unconvincing twist of gender and reincarnation, it’s Declan who hears a baby crying , experiences childbirth and rape as the reincarnation of Abbey, while Lena is Lucian. The two accept all this with equanimity, and, Manet Hall’s secrets revealed, it becomes the setting for predictable and much foreshadowed resolutions.
Agreeably credible lovers and a neat piece of home-restoration compensate some for the hokey hauntings on the bayou. Loyal fans will enjoy.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14824-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
A little slower-paced than the typical Roberts romantic mystery (Black Hills, 2009, etc.) but every bit as steamy. It may...
A dog trainer and a wood craftsman dance around love and danger in the Pacific Northwest.
Fiona Bristow is the only victim who got away from serial killer George Perry. Now a copycat, inspired and perhaps guided by the jailed Perry, is on her trail. After Perry murdered her fiancé, Fiona rebuilt her life as a dog trainer and search-and-rescue expert on lovely Orcas Island. She’s recently met talented woodworker Simon Doyle and his misbehaving puppy Jaws, and her dormant love life is about to revive as she and the reluctant Simon slowly build a complicated relationship. Though she’s done her best to overcome her fears and make herself whole again, this new series of killings, with herself as the ultimate target, can’t help but strain her nerves. As the police and FBI track the killer, a persistent reporter makes Fiona’s life more difficult by printing information about her life and location. Through it all, Fiona keeps working. As she continues to go on rescue missions with a team that may soon include Simon and Jaws, her friends help to keep her balanced. But ultimately it will be the trust she has built up with Simon and the talents of her dogs that will change her life forever.
A little slower-paced than the typical Roberts romantic mystery (Black Hills, 2009, etc.) but every bit as steamy. It may well add dog lovers to her legion of fans.Pub Date: July 7, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-399-15657-1
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
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