Campbell (What You Owe Me, 2001, etc.) transforms one mother’s heartbreaking dilemma into a compassionate and suspenseful...
Campbell’s provocative fourth novel explores our culture’s treatment of mental illness through the story of one mother’s desperate attempts to save her manic-depressive teenaged daughter.
Keri is the owner of a successful Los Angeles designer clothing resale shop. Her daughter Trina, headed to Brown on a National Merit scholarship, is diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 17 and put on medication. But Trina rebels against her mother’s rules, experiments with alcohol and marijuana, and won’t take her meds. Without them, she doesn’t sleep for days, becomes violent when her mother tries to restrain her, and runs away. When she turns 18, she can no longer be signed into the hospital for involuntary care. To protect her daughter, Keri calls the police. If they judge that Trina is a danger to herself or others, or is seriously disabled, she can be held against her will in a hospital’s mental ward for 72 hours. Each time this happens, Keri tries to get the hospital to extend the period so the medication that keeps Trina’s disorder under control can become effective, but usually she’s released at this point and goes back to her cycle of mania and depression. Meanwhile, the likable Keri has ongoing relationships with Orlando, an actor; his son, who trusts her enough to tell her he is gay before he is able to tell his parents; a support group for the loved ones of people with mental illnesses, and an ex-husband who puts work before family concerns and refuses to believe his daughter is ill. Through another suffering mother, Keri learns about an underground group of psychiatrists who “kidnap” patients like Trina, give them intensive therapy and save them from the most damaging effects of mental illness. Using Underground Railroad metaphors, Campbell describes Keri’s decision to make such an “intervention” and shows, through various twists and turns, how Keri and Trina change their lives.
Campbell (What You Owe Me, 2001, etc.) transforms one mother’s heartbreaking dilemma into a compassionate and suspenseful story that reverberates long after the final chapter is over.Pub Date: July 5, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-4074-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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
© Copyright 2026 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.
