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FAMOUS AFTER DEATH

Name: FAMOUS AFTER DEATH
Author: Benjamin Cheever
ISBN: 0-609-60005-2

by Benjamin Cheever ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 1999

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John Cheever’s son (The Partisan, 1994, etc.) follows in the footsteps, if not quite in the spirit, of his father in this witty send-up of politics, publishing, and crime—and of the synergy they generate on really good days. Noel Hammersmith is an editor at prestigious Acropolis Press (Kafka’s first American publisher), where he edits diet books and dreams of getting himself down to 138 pounds. A Westchester commuter with a true Walter Mitty streak, Noel takes out his many daily frustrations by writing venomous letters to companies that have earned his wrath, including Brooks Brothers (for discontinuing their classic Brooks Blue shirt) and Golden Rule Vitamins (for selling weight-loss products that failed to help Noel lose weight). He also begins negotiations for a manuscript with an author who calls himself Che Guevara; the proposed book will describe terrorist networks and how they operate in the US. Soon afterward, a succession of extremely powerful homemade bombs is set off in public places around New York by someone known as the “Wordsworth Bomber——whom Noel, of course, suspects to be Che. Uncovering a bizarre anti-immigration cult that is linked to Che, he finds himself wanting to broadcast its political ramblings across the entire country. Has Noel, through his interest in Che’s book, become implicated in a nativist cult? What is Noel’s first duty here: to his country, or to his author? Or is it to his own career? Acropolis Press, after all, is being bought out (by a pet food company called Pretty Kitty, Inc.), and everyone’s job is on the line. Noel has a hard time sorting out his loyalties, but in the end he makes a deal with both the police and with Che that results in a fate that Noel could never have imagined even in his most fervid daydreams—and that makes him a very thin man. Hilarious and just bad-natured enough to be cruel (that is, accurate) in its satire of modern greed and modern fame: an across- the-board winner.

Pub Date: April 28, 1999

ISBN: 0-609-60005-2

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GOOD NANNY
by Benjamin Cheever

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PARTISAN
by Benjamin Cheever

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PLAGIARIST
by Benjamin Cheever

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).

Pub Date: July 1, 2002

ISBN: 0-345-45071-X

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.