Who said anything about Danielle Steel? Father Greeley (Irish Lace, 1996, etc.) seems to have discovered Proust, if this elliptical—and endless—reminiscence of ancient pleasures and regrets is to be taken as a sign. Patrick Keenan, recently made a monsignor, grew up among the ``country club'' Irish of suburban Chicago and entered a seminary in the 1940s. There, his best friend was Leo Kelly, quieter and less self-assured than Patrick, and a sharer of Patrick's infatuation with Jane Devlin, a fiery redhead from the wrong side of the tracks. The Devlins had made a shady fortune and couldn't quite fit in with the ``Old Houses'' set at the lake resort where the Keenans hung out, but Jane's stunning good looks and—this being Greeley, after all—magnificent jugs help persuade even the most ardent snobs to overlook her shanty origins. Leo is still smitten with Jane when he drops out of the seminary, but whatever hopes he holds out vanish when two friends are killed in an automobile accident and Leo is falsely accused of driving the car. Although everything blows over, Leo feels the need to get away, so he joins the Marines and is sent to Korea, where he's captured and mistakenly reported killed in action. Jane, heartbroken, marries a drunken lout; Leo, depressed, survives prison, starts a new life as a political scientist, and marries a neurotic graduate student. Thirty unhappy years later, Leo, appointed provost of the University of Chicago, returns to the lake to sort out his life. Monsignor Keenan is able to prod him along the way, of course, to the happy ending we'd had all figured out by page eight. Too long and rambling to be a page-turner, although it has the usual Greeley graces (simple characters, even simpler ideas) in a plot that's not nearly as complex as it wants to be. For true believers only. (Literary Guild and Mystery Guild selections)
Pub Date: June 16, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-86082-X
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1997
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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