First-novelist Slegman, a former McCall's editor, makes tabloid headlines the stuff of inspiration—here, in a sometimes strained chronicle of surviving a dysfunctional family with the help of a starstruck grandmother. Set in the Kansas City of the 1960s and '70s, with period details kept refreshingly unobtrusive, the story celebrates the rocky growing-up of Roxanne, who, even at ten, ``had always had a deep and abiding belief that some day her life would be normal.'' This belief, however, is tested not only by the realities of her childhood but by the further traumas of adolescence. Roxanne remembers a childhood in which her mother, Emma, was usually ``doing one of two things—vacuuming or napping.'' Meanwhile, as father James daydreamed of something better than the present state of his marriage, it was Gramma who ran the household. Admired ``not only for her point of view...but for her eccentricities as well,'' Gramma tried to rear Roxanne and her younger brother, Gus, with a mix of intuition and aphorisms gleaned from her close reading of movie magazines. Later, the family's fragility is further threatened when James attempts suicide, then heads out to Esalen to find himself but instead meets Lydia, with whom he begins an affair. Gramma doesn't mind, as long as James stays with the family. But the affair has fatal consequences: James dies; Emma breaks down and has to be permanently hospitalized; 14-year-old Gus runs away to California, where he ends up living with wealthy, gay Fred; and Gramma and Roxanne—by now l6 and in the midst of a difficult adolescence—try to survive. Which they do, more or less. And when Gramma dies about the same time as her adored Elvis, her funeral becomes a celebration and an occasion for hope. A promising debut, with a terrific cast of strong and likably eccentric characters, that on balance tries too hard to make us laugh—and cry.
Pub Date: April 15, 1995
ISBN: 1-884235-10-7
Page Count: 230
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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