by Anne Rivers Siddons ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993
Siddons' last big commercial outing (Colony, 1992) was built along a New England-Southern axis. This time, she creates a passel of characters her fans will find reassuringly familiar, and then sends them far out of their ken—to Italy. Catherine Compton—a true Siddons woman in that she can whine engagingly—is from a tiny college town in Tennessee and has a macabre background: her mom and dad died while making love on a bridge. As a result, Cat grows up agoraphobic, refusing to leave the safe, idyllic little world of Trinity College, where her handsome Yankee husband, Joe Gaillard, teaches English. But when Joe's protÇgÇ, Colin Gerard, plans to get married in Italy, Cat faces her fears, books a flight, and—under the light of an Italian sun—finds everything different. Above all, Joe has a midlife crisis, sparked by the loss of his luggage and fanned by Ada Forrest, the wife of famous painter whom the Gaillards meet in Rome. Meanwhile, Sam Forrest takes a shine to Cat; her ``snub, narrow Renaissance look'' inspires him artistically, not to mention romantically. The two couples join the newlyweds on a honeymoon stomp across the boot, slurping bellinis at Florian's in Venice, marveling over Michelangelo's David in Florence, and finally holing up at a villa outside Siena. There, Sam reveals the portrait of Cat he's been working on, which portrays her as St. Theresa—though in sexual, not religious ecstasy. Joe is not amused, but the Gaillards will work things out before they head back to Tennessee, with their horizons expanded. Siddons's theme is the moral and psychological ambiguity that arises from American contact with the European other. Henry James did it better—with a whole lot more subtlety—but, still, Siddons's tried-and-true fans will be pleased. (First printing of 200,000; Literary Guild Dual Selection for September)
Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-017935-X
Page Count: 464
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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