The immensely prolific Fr. Greeley brings back the crazy O’Malley family (A Midwinter’s Tale, 1998) for a post-WW II romance about the perils of coming of age. Chucky O’Malley, who joined the army in 1946 for the GI Bill’s college benefits and became a sergeant in Germany, returns to Chicago in 1948 as a decorated veteran and enrolls at Notre Dame. Despite overseas encounters with beautiful FrÑuleins, he still has fond feelings for his childhood girlfriend, Rosemarie Clancy. She’s a kind of foster sister, though the recent photo he took of her in a two-piece bathing suit gets him in trouble at Notre Dame, as does reading Joyce’s Ulysses, which is on the Index. Will Chucky become a photographer? Father Raven has asked him to save Rosemarie. Her father is a mountainous, diabolical psychopath, a gambler and investor, a member of The Outfit; her mother’s a drunk, and Rosemarie, three years younger than Chucky, denies her own drinking problem. When a dozen bottles of beer are found under his bed at Notre Dame, Chucky is expelled and falls into steep hatred for the university and especially for his nemesis there, the intolerably intolerant Father Pius (“ ‘The university will be free from your evil soul!” Father Pius exulted”). Chucky goes on to get a job as an accountant and becomes deeply involved with the beautiful Cordelia, who eventually dumps him. Then, in Rome, he has some steamy affairs before returning home and enrolling alongside Rosemarie at the University of Chicago. Will he, can he, save her? It’s a question the author has the good sense not to answer. Greeley clearly likes to jump into a plot and row steadily, just to see what’s up for a whole batch of characters who will, of course, at last find themselves aswim in family warmth and Christmas carols, unwrapping middlebrow presents like Younger Than Springtime.
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-86572-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
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
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
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