The fifth and final installment in Nelson's Honest Women series (Honest April, 1994, etc.) is little more than a character waiting for a story to happen. Evelyn Lanier's quest for true love proves flimsy stuff on which to base a novel, largely because Greg, the would-be hero, disappears before he makes his presence felt, and Evelyn's endless musings about him comprise the bulk of the narrative. When as a college senior—in 1950s Tennessee—the quietly attractive Evelyn meets fellow student Greg Beall, she is already engaged to Ward Knight, a biologist with a chip on his shoulder, thanks to his lower-middle-class origins and Evelyn's wealth. But while what Evelyn feels for Greg far surpasses her feelings for Ward, she is above all else a woman of honor, and so she makes a choice she'll regret for years to come: She settles down with Ward, who fathers her two children but never makes her happy. As it turns out, Greg dies in Vietnam, after Evelyn and Ward's doomed marriage has fallen apart (and long after he, Greg, has inexplicably been eliminated as a character). Now, as a university professor, in a community of fellow writers and teachers, Evelyn has a second chance for love, or rather two: with Rob McFergus, a charismatic but married fiction writer with whom she's having an affair, and with Judd Adivino, a widower whose wife had befriended Evelyn when she needed it most. Through it all, Evelyn writes poetry, mothers Elaine and Ted as best she can, and hopes that her turn for happiness is around the bend. It takes a near disaster to show Evelyn that true love doesn't always have to be hard to come by. Not Nelson's—or this series'—finest moment; Evelyn's internalized struggles grow toward the inescapably tedious.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-13942-X
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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