Murdoch's third novel, following her melodramatic In Her Own Image and the rambling saga Family Business, is in another mood entirely; call it Norman Rockwell on a bender, since it's the caperish story of Pericles Morgan's last months on earth—which prove anything but uneventful. The Morgan family sends out a call to Pericles's niece, Joelene Mathiesen, a California widow, to come home to care for the old cuss. So Joelene packs her persimmon-colored Mustang and, along with teen-age son George, takes off, completely unaware that there's a fortune in large bills hidden under the back seat- -the property of her crooked ex-boyfriend, Don Diamond, who owes the dough to a gang of Colombian thugs. In the Hudson River village where she grew up, she finds Uncle Percy as difficult, unwashed, and unredeemed as ever, and she also discovers something else: a gigantic ark, which the duffer's been building for the last 30 or so years. Meanwhile, George, a problem child at best who wears an earring, dotes on the Grateful Dead, and smokes pot, turns out to be a fine companion for Uncle Percy, and Joelene meets a nice volunteer fireman named Pete. But then Don Diamond shows up with his bumbling henchman Ernie in pursuit of the loot, which, it turns out, George has found and hidden in sandbags at the ark construction site. There's a shoot-'em-up, during which Uncle Percy checks out, but a happy ending in store for Joelene and George nonetheless. Murdoch writes well—always has, in fact—but hasn't yet, it seems, stumbled on the right material. Here, she's eminently cute and quirky, but her story's thin, striving to be touching but generally landing in puddles of sitcom situation and sentiment.
Pub Date: May 22, 1991
ISBN: 0-06-018303-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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