For the first time in book form, a posthumous novella plus seven very short pieces by noted black South African writer Head- -stories that are generally more suggestive of ideas to be developed later than works that stand on their own. A child of mixed race and unknown parentage, Head, who died in exile in 1986 at the age of 49, was indelibly marked both by her personal history and by the political situation of her native South Africa. Raised by foster parents, self-educated for the most part, Head turned to writing when she could find no other work, eventually becoming a journalist on a leading black Johannesburg newspaper. She left the country in 1964 for permanent exile in neighboring Botswana, however, not only because she feared imprisonment for her political activities but because she felt the conditions there made writing impossible. ``The Cardinals'' is in many ways a brief but intense reprise of her early life and the major themes that would later preoccupy her. For Head, Cardinals ``in the astrological sense are those who serve as the base or foundation for change,'' and the novella's protagonist, Mouse, emotionally stunted by her childhood, and her lover Johnny are two such people. Mouse, whose mother sold her as an infant to a childless couple in a city slum, is initially happy and learns to read on her own; but when her adopted father molests her, she runs away and spends the rest of her childhood in foster homes. A letter to a magazine gets her a job as a reporter; there, she meets the mercurial but charismatic older Johnny. Their love affair, tainted unwittingly with incest, develops inevitably against a background of increased repression. The other pieces here are much shorter explications of the same preoccupations: variants of a character like Johnny and what it means to be a writer. Uneven writing relieved by powerful evocations of passion and suffering: a reminder of how good Head could be—and was.
Pub Date: Jan. 25, 1996
ISBN: 0-435-90967-3
Page Count: 141
Publisher: Heinemann
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
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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