Here, as in Small Sacrifices (1987), Rule (If You Really Loved Me, 1991, etc.) re-creates the compelling story of a woman hellbent on gratification and devoid of conscience. No one is allowed to hinder Patricia Allanson's determination to become a mid-20th- century Scarlett O'Hara, complete with a heavily mortgaged Tara and an adoring Rhett. Raised by her socially ambitious mother and spit-and-polish Army colonel stepfather, ``Pat'' demands constant attention and unqualified love. Married early to an Army sergeant by whom she has three children, she eventually tires of her GI existence and sets off to find wealth and excitement. Pat soon gets engaged to Tom Allanson, a gentle giant six years her junior; at their wedding, the couple are dressed as Margaret Mitchell's hero and heroine. Tom's family disapproves of his new wife's flamboyant ways, and the situation between his family and hers—exacerbated by Pat's unsubstantiated complaints of sexual harassment by her father-in- law—becomes increasingly violent until the elder Allansons are murdered and Tom is accused of the killings. Pat insists on directing the defense; Tom is convicted and sentenced to life. Pat then turns her attention to Tom's remaining family, ingratiating herself with his invalid grandparents. When she's certain that their wills name her as a major beneficiary, she begins lacing their food with arsenic. But before she can kill them, she's caught—and does eight years for attempted murder. Released and apparently reformed, she's hired as a practical nurse by a rich Atlanta couple. The aged pair soon sickens; the husband dies, and Pat is convicted of attempted murder and theft. Today, she's serving time. Rule climaxes her narrative with a moving interview with the now-released Tom, and with stunning suggestions of how Pat engineered the killing of her husband's parents. A headlong plunge into the depths of a sociopathic mind, told with a master's hand. (Photographs—24 pp. b&w—not seen.)
Pub Date: Dec. 3, 1992
ISBN: 0-671-69070-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992
A dry exegesis of country music by the author of Electronic Hearth (1991). Tichi (English/Vanderbilt Univ.) is a novice fan of country music whose background is strongest in American literature and art. Proceeding thematically, she addresses common issues in American culture, including the tension between the individual and society, the lure of home versus the call of the road, and nature as both a nurturing and potentially dangerous force. Lacing together anecdotes, interviews, and analysis of songs, she comes to the conclusion that country music addresses many of the same topics as more ``serious'' art forms, making it ``emphatically [a] national music.'' While her discussions can be interesting, ultimately she offers little new to explain the popularity or quality of country music. The musicians she favors—Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Laurie Lewis, Nanci Griffith, and Barry and Holly Tashian—all come out of a folk-rock background (in the '70s, they would have been called singer/songwriters), so they naturally tend to take an intellectual, pseudoliterary approach to songwriting and performance. Tichi's musical knowledge is slim, leading to some factual errors, as when she ascribes ``Dueling Banjos'' to Earl Scruggs, though it was in fact recorded by Marshall Brickman and Eric Weissberg. And the comment that ``the ability to read music would be futile for bluegrass...the music simply moves too fast to be read off the page'' would come as a surprise to any classical violinist who's ever tackled Paganini. The book is accompanied by a CD that primarily focuses on new country acts; this material is readily available, and it would be surprising if a reader who was attracted to this book did not already own most of these recordings. A tip of the academic mortarboard towards the ten-gallon-hat crowd that will befuddle members of both groups. (122 b&w photos and 16-page color insert)
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1994
ISBN: 0-8078-2134-9
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Univ. of North Carolina
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Tisdale (Stepping Westward, 1991, etc.) leads an enthusiastic amateur's tour through sex in America (with a few brief forays abroad). In an inviting expansion of her controversial 1992 Harper's magazine essay of the same title, Tisdale offers a trek through sexual inhibitions, expressions, assumptions, and questions (for instance, if everyone thinks about sex so much, why do so few feel comfortable discussing it?), arriving at an increasingly fashionable pro-sex feminism. Americans are so conflicted about sex, she says, because they're caught endlessly between obsession and avoidance. Tisdale, fighting avoidance, confronts the subject head on. She checks out sex clubs, sex toy stores, pornography shops, and erotic novels, citing everyone from Roland Barthes to Susie Bright. Ancient Greece, the story of Adam and Eve, Freud, Jesse Helms, and Basic Instinct convince her that we're a nation of guilty prudes, arrested adolescents who can't sate our lust for adult material. We're ``sex drenched and sex phobic.'' Tisdale indicates that the fear starts with men, but that women can help fix it. ``Women guiding the sexual drive of men changes them, gentles the institutions men have made to cope with their feelings toward women.'' One area she sees women reinventing is pornography. The chapter on this subject is by far the most controversial and at times tedious. Coming down hard on anti-porn feminists like Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (even more than on the Religious Right), she argues for tolerance and maintains that the heterosexual nuclear family, reproductive legislation, and patriarchal society in general are likely to do more damage to women than any X-rated films. Finally, she reaches the unoriginal but hopeful point that sexual freedom contains the seeds of significant social change. ``The center will not hold...if radical sexuality works.'' Just about everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask. Fluidly written, sexy, probing, personally revealing, and wise.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-46854-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
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