An intriguing tale with a clever narrative twist that nearly compensates for its lack of dramatic excitement.
Lawton’s (Imagining Russia 2000, 2004) novel looks at the half-century journey of two best friends who moved from Italy to the United States in 1967.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Amy is in her 50s and living in New York City. She was born and raised around Turin, Italy, at the end of the 1940s, the wealthy daughter of an American, Larry, and an Italian, Anna. The fact that Amy had a foreign father caused local kids to shun her, but she did have one best friend—an Italian girl named Stella. Now, in 2001, she’s taken over Larry’s publishing house and is committed to finally publishing what she feels is the most important manuscript in her possession—Stella’s diaries, written between 1967 and 1985. Much of Stella’s memoir, which comprises Part 2 of this novel, is about her deep, complicated relationship with Jim Welsh, a film scholar and teacher in Venice, California. Jim is moody, Stella is restless, and after a few years, they separate. The first-person manuscript ends abruptly in 1985, and Part 3 of the narrative jumps to 2001 once again as Amy decides to turn Stella’s memoir into a novel. Savvy readers will suspect that something isn’t quite as it appears, as Italian author Lawton, in her first novel in English, effectively drops breadcrumbs along the way. Her prose is more expository than passionate in nature, and it includes numerous engaging discussions about the political, cultural, and social movements roiling America in different eras. However, these sometimes come at the expense of a fuller portrayal of Amy and Stella’s immigrant journey. Readers may wish that Lawton had provided more about how the women found their place and purpose in a new country in changing times.
An intriguing tale with a clever narrative twist that nearly compensates for its lack of dramatic excitement.Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9974962-1-5
Page Count: 248
Publisher: New Academia Publishing/ The Spring
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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