An often beautifully crafted first novel marred by an upscale formulaic plot—one that typically celebrates strong women abandoned by weak men. When husband Vernon leaves Kay and their five children in 1960 because ``he needs to go'' to Europe to find the grave of long-dead love Irene, sensible Kay is devastated. But somehow she keeps the family together in their rambling old farmhouse in upstate New York. She plants her garden, works as a checker at a supermarket, and tries to celebrate the holidays as she and Vernon used to, but the absent husband casts a long shadow—a shadow detailed in subsequent chapters as each child, now grown up, recounts the effects of that abandonment. Eldest son Dean, unhappy in his marriage because he feels responsibility has been thrust upon him too early, has affairs; second son Steve, like his father ``uncomfortable with strangers,'' lives like a hermit in the woods; twin Joe, though hard-working and steady like Mom, hates his meatpacking job but can't quit because he's got too many bills to pay; other twin Paul, who felt his father ``preferred him in some odd way,'' starts drinking heavily as a teenager and never stops; and young Zoe Mae, only three when Dad left, determined to be independent, joins the Coast Guard after high school. As the years pass, Vernon writes occasionally, still trying to explain why he had to leave his family, but he never gets to Europe and the letters eventually stop. Meanwhile, the town declines; Kay grows weary of cultivating her garden; the family grows apart, though they all come together when they learn that Vernon has died. Now they can weep for all their years of deprivation—for that ``intimate act of treason'' their father perpetrated on them. Many vivid details, while the characters, all familiar types, are trapped in a plot as unrelenting as an IRS form. Good writing, bad formula.
Pub Date: Feb. 24, 1993
ISBN: 0-943433-10-X
Page Count: 180
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1992
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
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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