A dual debut for filmmaker Campion and her sister Anna, who offer an account of a very twisted love/hate affair that transpires between a kidnaped cult member and her deprogrammer. “Exit counselors,” something of a cross between psychotherapists and secret agents, specialize in forcibly removing people from cults and reorienting them to the real world. P.J. Waters is one of the best of the breed. A New Yorker, P.J. is called halfway across the globe to Australia to assist in the case of Ruth Baron, a bright girl from New South Wales who decided to take a year off from her university studies to travel through India with some friends and ended up joining a cult headed by the charlatan guru Chidaatma Baba. Baba’s brand of asceticism has a Hindu scent but is basically his own concoction, revolving in large part on unthinking subservience to him. By the time Ruth’s family finds out where she’s ended up, she’s set to be “initiated” in two weeks. With no time to be lost, Ruth’s mother and brother manage to kidnap her and bring her home to Australia, but it’s up to P.J. to convince her not to return—or to kill herself. This he accomplishes through intensive interrogations conducted in a safe house over a period of days leading to weeks. As usual, P.J. succeeds, but this time something out of the ordinary happens: he and Ruth develop an erotic obsession with each other. P.J. is a married man, Ruth is barely in her 20’s. An affair would only harm her and destroy him—or would it? Two people who have dedicated most of their lives to a search for meaning are not likely to be constrained by conventions, but they cannot be exempt from them either. Can they help each other out? The premise and plot are very old-hat, but the Campion sisters” narration is fresh and deft enough to breathe life into them: Worth a look.
Pub Date: May 26, 1999
ISBN: 0-7868-6349-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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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