Short as it is, this one seems too long by far.
Continuing to cultivate the static side of his sensibilities, the prolific Gifford (The Sinaloa Story, 1998, etc.) here presents a road story featuring a mother and son who drive around the US for a few years, talking about life.
In the 1950s, Roy and his mom are on the road, driving up and down and around America. Roy, a typical young boy, has a lot of questions about where they're going, where they've been, and why his mom and dad aren't together anymore. As she drives, Mom tries to answer as best she can, sugar-coating the truth at times and changing the subject at others; but since theirs is a neverending journey, the questions keep coming, and eventually details of the world Roy inhabits emerge. His dad's friends, whom Roy sees on occasion when he's not driving with Mom, are quintessential noir characters, from the sleepy-eyed ex-prizefighter Buzzy Shy, who wanted a waiter to kiss his fly, to the crooked cop Phil Sharky, who let Roy play with his loaded revolver one night when Dad wasn't around. Despite exposure to this crowd, though, Roy retains his innocence, wanting only to have Mom drive them to Wyoming, where he and his dog would have plenty of room to roam—if he had a dog. But Mom never makes it to Wyoming, and she never stops driving either, not even when they learn that Roy's dad died in a Chicago hospital. Later, when Roy describes his vision of the afterlife, hell is a hole near the equator that people fall into, heaven is a place reached only by tornado, and purgatory is where people "just stay where they are, and they don't even know they're waiting." There's no doubt where he is in that scheme of things.
Short as it is, this one seems too long by far.Pub Date: July 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-55970-523-X
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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