In the rolling cadences and quirky dialect of Ireland's west country, a tepid first novel pursues the magic and emotional depths of rural life—though ultimately offers little more than scenery. John Davey, having come from London to claim an inheritance, starts out with intentions of selling his aunt's ramshackle farmhouse and ends up wholly converted to the Connemara way of life. Instead of cashing in and moving on, a growing trend among his country neighbors, John takes the advice of an actor friend and transforms the farm into a retreat for artists. While converting the buildings, he becomes acquainted with his neighbors, odd birds, each of them. There's old Ignatius, master storyteller and, to hear him tell it, acquainted with the fairies himself. Keeping him company are his two middle-aged twin daughters, Mary Anne and Anna Marie, who shuffle about without speaking and carve their names into everything they come across. The local postman doubles as a taxidermist, and Shovels introduces John to ``mountain tay'' as time is whiled away fishing with young Kierah or chatting with shy Patricia, who dreams of America. Meantime, busy London life fades from memory for John: ``When you are out, it's a wonder if things are happening as normal in the busy world, and another thing to wonder if you weren't just a little bit fooled by its business.'' The blue charm of the title is the indescribable beauty of the dusk sky, which has enchanted John as powerfully as some ancient hex- -though, unfortunately, it has little hold on the reader. While the meandering pace and eccentric characters have all the making of a fine, painterly novel, the story's finally overburdened with its own atmosphere, overshadowing any hint of a plot. Not unpromising, but this debut lacks the energy to deliver more than just a surface view of rural life.
Pub Date: April 3, 1996
ISBN: 0-85640-544-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Dufour
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996
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
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
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