Doherty's first fiction for adults (she's a two-time winner of Britain's Carnegie Medal for children's literature) draws on her familiar theme of emotional abandonment but adds sexual repression, superstition, and madness to the mix. The story, set in an economically and spiritually impoverished Ireland, deals with the hard life of Rose Waterhouse. When she's eight years old, her imaginative older brother Desmond dies, and when she's 15, her dull-spirited parents, still grief-stricken, relocate, indifferently leaving Rose behind. Rose moves in with a friend and learns typing; then, at 18, she meets a handsome nightclub performer, has sex with him, swiftly falls in love, and moves into his grumpy, incontinent old grandmother's house. Soon the performer abandons her, but by then she's already caring for his baby by another woman, and when she leaves, she takes the baby with her. Before long, though, Rose realizes she'll have to find the baby a father (i.e., a means of support) and plots to marry sexless, shuffling Gordon, the middle-aged brother of the owner of the boardinghouse where she stays; Gordon possesses a job, stability, and a suburban house. But she also requires sex, and Gordon won't sleep with her, so the drama begins: next door to Gordon's house lives a hunchback named Paedric, a gothic gnome with a fevered imagination. As Rose's abducted ``son'' Edmund grows from a baby into a fat, unhappy child, Rose and Paedric spend their time spinning ever more elaborate tales of lust and adventure, eventually conceiving an imaginary baby of their own; meanwhile, Rose, in erotic rapture that seemingly approaches madness, increasingly neglects and mistreats Edmund and profoundly alienates frigid Gordon, who soon deserts her. Finally, Rose, rejected by Paedric, haunted by Edmund, runs away and starts over again, as she did at age 15. Rich in imagery, full of atmosphere, and certainly consistent with Doherty's earlier writing about orphans and unstable families- -but dour, rather cryptic, and uninvolving.
Pub Date: Aug. 13, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14442-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
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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