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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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