A former member of Manhattan's Wooster Group theater company lightly fictionalizes a scattershot memoir of her West Coast relatives. Rower's disjointed first effort aspires to be a profound commentary on the different lifestyles found on opposite coasts— and yet relies on such insights as ``It's a California thing'' to describe the LA fondness for cars, panic disorders, and security systems. Ann, the narrator, barely disguises her own unpleasant character from the moment she travels to LA for the funeral of her famous uncle, Leo Robin, the Oscar-winning lyricist who also composed Bob Hope's theme song. Over the following years, as she continues to visit the family that Uncle Leo left behindheaded by the wife he married at age 82Ann drools for the family Jaguar, her aunt's diamonds, her uncle's Oscar, and a Henry Miller painting that she does in fact score (``It was all so famous, resonant, and exciting to me''). Ann's greatest transgression, though, becomes apparent in a self-reflexive afterword, where she blithely justifies exploiting her relatives for the sake of art and offers some phony excuses about bettering womankind—including verbatim the suicide note of Uncle Leo's step-granddaughter, an aspiring model in her late 20s who couldn't overcome her debilitating neuroses. Ann's episodic visits west, over a nine-year period, begin at Leo's funeral, with her aunt obsessed over whether Bob Hope will show up at the service. Ann returns four years later to comfort the aunt, named Cherrie, now dying of cancer and zonked out on Valium. Another trip to see the opening of her play (``LSD Just the High Points'') ``was the high point of a very high time for'' her. Meanwhile, Cherrie's family continues to entertain this obnoxious relative who mocks their apparent tackiness, their treatment of their servants, and their unenlightened politics. Some lesbian interludes and a strident call for ``more Amazonian [role] models'' suggest the gender-correct politics that underpin this awkward and amateurish book.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-85242-415-X
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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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