Short on subtlety and insider dish, this political page-turner will nevertheless rally the blue and annoy the red.
California Senator Boxer’s first novel follows the fortunes of a young children’s advocate and her politically polarized swains.
Another dogwood-redolent D.C. spring, 2001. Frosh Senator Ellen Fischer (D-Calif.) is considering how best to block the appointment of conservative Frida Hernandez to the Supreme Court. Greg, a journalist co-opted by the right, offers her the dirt she needs: hospital records suggesting Hernandez abused her child. Pillow talk between Greg and former researcher Micaela reveals that the tell-tale documents are fakes. Flashback to 1974, Berkeley. Ellen is canvassing signatures for the Children’s Alliance when she encounters two fellow UC seniors, pony-tailed radical Josh Fischer and studly Greg Hunter, the rejected son of an ex-Marine. Josh and Ellen are drawn to each other ideologically, but on the night of Nixon’s resignation, she and Greg share a post-celebratory one-night stand. Cut to 1982. Ellen and Josh are married. He’s a beleaguered public defender while Ellen continues her work rescuing disadvantaged children for the Alliance. Greg, cub reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, reconnects with gal-pal socialite Jane Hecht, ingratiating himself with her father, Gunther, a Reagan-backer. Josh falls hard for Bianca, a murder defendant’s wife, but she disappears after her husband’s acquittal. In 1989, Josh heroically interrupts a high-school shooting. His political career accelerates as he cleans up a polluted neighborhood. Greg succumbs to the blandishments of Senator Carl Satcher, Republican powerhouse. Soon Greg has morphed into Satcher’s media lapdog, his investigative skills harnessed for dirt-digging on Democrats. Josh challenges Satcher for his Senate seat in 1998, and Greg and Micaela find Bianca. Josh is most daunted by the insinuation that he fathered Bianca’s daughter, since Ellen’s longing for a child was thwarted by infertility. Driving recklessly home to confess, Josh rear-ends a truck and—why ruin the suspense?
Short on subtlety and insider dish, this political page-turner will nevertheless rally the blue and annoy the red.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-8118-5043-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
