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THE ORPHAN GAME

Name: THE ORPHAN GAME
Author: Ann Darby
ISBN: 0-688-16778-0

by Ann Darby ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1999

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A slight first novel with a sluggish plot whose elliptical segments explore unsatisfactory family relationships and a teenage pregnancy, though in a nicely detailed 1960s suburban Californian setting. Three women narrate: Maggie Harris, the teenager who became pregnant; her mother, Marian Harris; and Marian’s aunt, the raffish Mrs. Rumsen. There are also brief, mawkish contributions from siblings Jamie and Alison, while Maggie’s portions of the tale often move into the future as she gives sketchy intimations of her life once she’s left California. The Harris family doesn’t have much cash. Father Jim, a developer, keeps investing in properties that are supposed to make him rich but never do. Marian, a skilled seamstress, sews for extra income, but financial disaster always seems imminent. As she sews, Marian recalls her alcoholic mother and lonely childhood. Maggie’s narration, meanwhile, records how at 16 she fell in love with Bruce, a recent high-school graduate preparing to enlist. Unfortunately, though, neither Maggie nor Bruce is developed enough to carry a story effectively detailing the ways families hurt and help each other. When Maggie learns she’s pregnant (after Bruce’s Christmas leave) and tries to tell her parents, they fight, so she runs away. Finally, a family truce ends in tragedy, and Maggie moves in with Mrs. Rumsen, who once lost everything she treasured in a fire and has her own memories of being rejected by her family. Maggie has the baby and decides, looking at the way Mrs. Rumsen has made a life for herself, that it’s possible “to gather up bits and pieces of the wrecked past and make something fine of them.” Newcomer Darby tries hard to map the hostile and difficult terrain of family life, but her characters are too weak to give her much help.

Pub Date: May 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-688-16778-0

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.