Light, fey fiction from an author who’s clearly a man of the world as well as a man of letters. His reputation still rests...
It looks a lot like Pulitzer-winning humorist and proficient memoirist Buchwald (I'll Always Have Paris, 1996, etc.) has dipped into the depths of his filing cabinet to fish out this largely wan attempt at the art of fiction.
The tale is formed by alternating bits of commentary from protagonist Roger Folger (a name surely not the one the character was born with) and his deceased wife, Stella. The late Mrs. Folger, recently removed from Forest Hills, New York, relaxes by the pool at the celestial counterpart of Florida's Ritz-Carlton. She is in contact with her husband via some sort of supernal cell phone (and, given the progress of technology, such a thing seems as plausible as the rest of the fable). With a willful daughter (who becomes an unwed mother) and a soulful son (who rejected a bar mitzvah), the Folger family performs as if in a sitcom of sorts. Dead Stella and live Roger both have comical sidekicks. To add to the typical high jinks, there's Stella's mother-in-law, who arrives in Heaven and raises Hell. (The radical mother-in-law, mention of Timothy Leary, and references to young Folger's service in Vietnam give the text a certain musty quality.) The story: Stella tries to provide a new spouse for her husband. He’ll make an independent choice, however—one that will come as no surprise to anyone. Of course, Buchwald, who has conquered nearly every form of writing (save, perhaps, computer software and SAT questions), sports a clever intelligence. His attempt at fiction does, perforce, contain flashes of wisdom and a natural patina of humor. But in the subcategory of dead spousal influence, he's not quite up to Noël Coward or even Thorne Smith.
Light, fey fiction from an author who’s clearly a man of the world as well as a man of letters. His reputation still rests on his political commentary, his well-crafted memoirs, and all those funny columns.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2000
ISBN: 0-399-14642-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
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
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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