A respected Puerto Rican writer delivers a collection of short stories (her first in English) that, for all its abundant wit and style, is maddeningly elusive. Filled with bits of jargon and references to American films and directors, Vega's stories like to lead readers astray. They force identification with characters headed nowhere, and they teasingly intimate that there will be a progression when in fact there is only a convoluted whirling in place. Since story after story falls apart at the end, and in precisely the same manner, we cannot but assume that these ``surprise endings'' worthy of a seventh-grader's pranks (in ``Solutions, Inc.'' the anonymous ``patroness'' of a detective-like agency helping women find grounds for divorce turns out to be the ``perfect husband'' of the one woman they can't help; a tacky ``Editor's Note'' at the end of the title story explains the narrator's death) are intentional exercises of craft. Her comic touch is heavy-handed and similarly juvenile. In an apparent effort at experimentation, Vega sometimes composes in numbered sections with a change of speaker and/or locale at each break. There are stabs at genre: ``Just One Small Detail'' almost succeeds as a parody of detective fiction; ``Deliverance From Evil'' and ``SÇrie Noire'' pose as ghost stories. Peopled by spirits, lies, and half-truths, Vega's writing aims for the some of the tone but never attains the height of magic realism. Narrators often assume the roles of gossip columnists, reminiscent of those busybodies we hope literature will block out. The novella ``Miss Florence's Trunk'' (composed mostly of diary entries from an American tutor on a Canadian sugar plantation in the mid 1800s) is a bit more absorbing, but it, like many of the stories, suffers from its passive, retrospective voice. Craft, perception, intelligence. These stories have everything going for them. Too bad the result is a mishmash.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1994
ISBN: 1-85242-272-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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