An entertaining and thoughtful account of loss and artistic ambition.
A young, troubled celebrity turns to a friend for salvation.
Pop star Ananda Dawn crashes her rental car into the Eiffel Tower. She is immediately swarmed by paparazzi, and suspected of driving while under the influence of drugs. She charms her way out of a difficult bind, but immediately flies back to the United States to seek out the companionship of her estranged friend, Margaret “Mag” Woods. Years earlier, Ananda’s biography, written by her manager, painted a bacchanalia-inspired picture of Mag’s friendship with the singer, which included unrestrained promiscuity and rampant drug use. The scandal that ensued nearly ended Mag’s career as a therapist. Ananda, who wants to mend fences and revive the friendship, furtively drugs Mag’s tea, calls her boss and quits on her behalf, and convinces her to become the star’s manager. Mag accepts the position on the condition that Ananda seek professional help for her drug addiction. Looming in the background is the fact that Mag has just written an unflattering book about Ananda, soon to be published by a major press outlet. Meanwhile, Mag feels torn between becoming a fully responsible adult and indulging a wilder side that not only craves spontaneity, but also artistic fulfillment: “My creative brain burst to life while my rational brain loosened its vise-like grip. I’d spent years sharpening it, and then it became the least important thing in the world.” Debut author Taylor writes with a punchy flair, and manages to conjure a protagonist both infuriating and beguiling simultaneously. Mag turns out to be a fascinatingly complex character as well. Her creative ambition—and a sorrowful loss experienced at the height of the women’s friendship—constitutes the powerful bond between the two, who turn out to have a deeper kinship than one initially suspects. The plot, problematically, is sometimes a bit contrived, and will likely elicit the reader’s incredulity. For example, Mag is weirdly unperturbed by the fact that she was drugged, and inexplicably ready to ditch her career at a moment’s notice. She also seems aggrieved by her loss of professional credibility, but the book she writes to vindicate herself seems destined to only exacerbate the problem. The intelligently crafted characters—and the nuanced relationships between them—compensate for these failings.
An entertaining and thoughtful account of loss and artistic ambition.Pub Date: Dec. 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5188-2759-4
Page Count: 403
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2016
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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