An overly long yet honest account of a family ensnared by tragedy.
In Ark’s (Pants on Fire!, 2013) novel, an artist in Hawaii loses her philandering husband to a younger woman, then two of her children to suicide.
The morning of their 25th wedding anniversary, Bullet Pulaski tells his wife, Lucky, that he wants a divorce. Leaving her and his three children, he moves in with one of his art students yet continues for months to wander in and out of the family home and the studio where Lucky fires pottery and he paints. Lucky is fully developed: Her Catholic upbringing has been eclipsed by tarot readings and New Age spirituality; an early desire to perform onstage was discarded in favor of motherhood, a deep commitment to her art and an overwhelming need for love. Though at first she aches for her husband, as his narcissistic behavior worsens and she recalls years of indignities endured, her love turns bitter, fueling a divorce every bit as nasty as her parents’. The scenes Ark writes are vivid and real—Christmas morning destroyed when Bullet’s pet donkey devours breakfast, or Lucky, when she is desperate for sensation, kissing her own arm and masturbating with “Moby Pickle” from the fridge. The divorce goes on and on, and time grows soupy, with the story stalling amid the depression and chaos. There are confusing jumps through time; Ark writes that “1989, 1990, 1991 had come and gone…and no divorce,” though about 140 pages later, “fourteen months had passed since Lucky filed for divorce.” Two men wander into and out of her life, but the pain they cause is trifling compared with the losses that will come. As tragedy overtakes Lucky, the prose is eloquently anguished: “How did she find herself still there, isolated on a windswept shore in the midst of the great Pacific, her womb wrenched loose as though ripped and fed upon by grief-starved sharks?”
An overly long yet honest account of a family ensnared by tragedy.Pub Date: June 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-0988476219
Page Count: 514
Publisher: ARABELLA ARK
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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