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DAUGHTER

Though the end dips into the maudlin, first-novelist bandele delivers an eloquent message about the tragedy of dreams—and...

A potent mix of familial strife and racial injustice in Brooklyn, by Essence editor, poet, and memoirist bandele (The Prisoner’s Wife, 1999).

Aya’s story begins things: how the 19-year-old is reshaping her life after a year in juvenile detention (a heavy penalty in a case where she was arguably the victim.) The beautiful girl is a straight-A student in college and keeps an early curfew to appease her mother Miriam, a tight-lipped woman who has showered Aya with rules instead of love. When Aya is shot by a white policeman on her evening jog—her hooded sweatshirt similar to a robbery suspect’s—Miriam is left at her daughter’s bedside wondering whether she was all the mother she could have been. Miriam’s own mother, suffering five miscarriages before the birth of her daughter, considered Miriam a miracle and protected her like a relic: Miriam’s life was a warning of what not to do, who not to talk to, how not to think. When Miriam is 16, she meets Bird, a janitor at her high school, newly back from Vietnam. With Bird, Miriam begins to think and feel for herself, and the two begin a secret and chaste love affair. When Miriam’s parents discover the relationship, she must move in with Bird and the loving grandmother he supports. The two build dreams for the future—despite Bird’s Vietnam nightmares and the police harassment he endures, simply for being black in America. bandele’s agenda, via Bird—the inequities of the black soldier, the long history of racial profiling, living with injustice and the effects of that on Miriam and those around her—finds a balanced voice in the short and angry life of Bird Jefferson. While Miriam is pregnant with Aya, Bird is “accidentally” shot by the police, and Miriam switches to emotional autopilot for the next 19 years, until the shooting of her own daughter.

Though the end dips into the maudlin, first-novelist bandele delivers an eloquent message about the tragedy of dreams—and life—deferred.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-7432-1184-7

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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MAGIC HOUR

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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