Next book

SAVING GRACE

A noisy domestic drama—set in the environs of New York City and Israel—in which a family is torn apart by the father's political ruin. Again, as in the author's Cafe Nevo (1987) and Changing States (1981), Israel offers a challenge and a vision that, here, will unlock a heart and provide a future. The household headed by Jonathan Fleishman, much admired Democratic Party leader with a past of civil-rights activism, is not a happy one. Wife Lily, remote but always gently supportive, is as helpless as Jonathan in the face of the rage of 18-year-old Grace, always ``a fighter and survivor,'' always her father's favorite. Like grandmother Clara, son Paul is an ``uncompromising materialist,'' but, unlike Clara, Paul has no commitment to family (Paul has a few stupid/nasty lines, then splits for good). Now Jonathan—given the shoulder by daughter Grace because, in spite of all his noble sentiments, he'd sold their home in a newly black neighborhood—is in deep trouble. Old friends have squealed, the media is rumbling, and the law is about to accuse him of extortion and influence-peddling—things that ``everybody does.'' Reporter Barnaby sleeps with Grace, and elicits a family secret. Thumbscrews, meanwhile, are being twisted on Jonathan's reputation; Lily is dying of a brain tumor; and then Grace, sent to Israel to stay at a kibbutz with Aunt Tamar and her adopted son Micha, is lost in a Judean desert. The Book of Job, not surprisingly, comes to mind. Finally, Jonathan delivers a high-decibel confession to a jury, sacrificially inviting the clink; Lily dies; and Grace has her angst cured by Israel, where there's a ``saving attachment to place.'' There's also Micha—strong, brave, with a cleft in his chin, etc. An earnest novel, but simplistic in characterization. One cannot believe in these theatric people, who seem to have only one stance and one dimension.

Pub Date: June 26, 1991

ISBN: 0-525-24963-X

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991

Categories:
Next book

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

Categories:
Next book

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

Categories:
Close Quickview