bookshelf

BITTER LAKE

Name: BITTER LAKE
Author: Ann Harleman
ISBN: 0-87074-404-6

by Ann Harleman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 20, 1997

bookshelf

A polished but bloodless first novel from the author of Happiness (1994), winner of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, that offers yet another tale of women—here, a mother and daughter- -abandoned by the men they love too much. Set in a gritty Pennsylvania town dominated by its steel mill, the story's narrators are mother Judith and alienated teenage daughter Lil. In alternating chapters (replete with obligatory flashbacks to supposedly seminal but often banal moments in the past), the two record the events of the weeks following husband/father Gort's disappearance. Gort, an engineer at the mill, has gone off before. An idealist who cherishes his own space, he's easily threatened by too much routine and by emotional dependency. A two-week timeout has usually been enough to restore him to the family and workplace, but this time he seems to be staying away longer. As money grows short, Judith, who's lost her job and suffers from all sorts of phobias, is forced to seek work, which she finds as an apprentice carpenter across town. Meanwhile, Lil, who reveres Gort, despises her mother's timidity, and is irritated by younger sister Susie, moves in with great-aunt Clesta, who lives in a crumbling mansion. As the summer passes, Judith has an affair with Eli, a co-worker; Lil embarks on a sexual relationship with cousin Daniel, also living with Clesta; and Judith recalls how she met and married Gort, a first cousin, when she was only 19. The discovery of Gort's body in his favorite lake leads to one of those familiar cathartic crises that tests both Judith and Lil. And, also as usual, both women pass the trial: Mother and daughter find a new restorative closeness. Smoothly done, but tired and overworked.

Pub Date: Jan. 20, 1997

ISBN: 0-87074-404-6

Page Count: 264

Publisher: Southern Methodist Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

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...

bookshelf

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

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

bookshelf

Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.