Hopeful but not saccharine, this novel offers a deeply sympathetic view of recovery from grief.
Caught stealing supplies from her workplace, a bereaved woman is given the choice to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or lose her job.
It’s been less than a year since tragedy struck Lucy Peterman: A car accident killed her husband and led to the miscarriage of what would have been her first child. She’s been soldiering on in her job as a reconstructive surgeon for women who have lost breasts to cancer. On the outside, she seems to be doing well; yet she can’t stop pilfering medical supplies and lifting small items from the grocery store. Lucy doesn’t understand it herself, as she explains to the hospital administrator who confronts her: “I don’t even know I’m taking it. I mean, I know I’m taking it, but it’s like I’m watching someone else and I can’t get her to stop.” To keep her job, Lucy must attend AA meetings, the best free choice for addressing compulsive behavior in her small town. She also follows instructions to get counseling, although “she found therapists to be overly personal people prone to making generalizations and wearing clogs.” Deeply skeptical—in denial, some would say—Lucy nevertheless makes connections in the group, especially after she adopts a stray dog. Slowly, Lucy comes to terms with her past and her new future. Garvin (On Maggie’s Watch, 2010) is insightful about grief and the pervasiveness of denial. Those familiar with 12-step programs will recognize the brand of tough love depicted here. With humor and compassion, Garvin shows how recovery depends on honesty—often with other people who share an addiction, whether to booze, drugs or shoplifting—and on helping others, whether stray dogs or stray people. Lucy’s current problems are well-accounted for; one character, a troubled teenager, is an excellent foil for Lucy to re-examine the privileges she has enjoyed and overlooked. Even minor characters are brought to life, such as the malaprop-prone supermarket clerk who has a crush on Lucy (and is given a respectful outcome).
Hopeful but not saccharine, this novel offers a deeply sympathetic view of recovery from grief.Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-0425269251
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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