A singer-songwriter of some renown, Morrissey displays all the strained seriousness of angst-ridden folkies in this lugubrious first novel about a down-on-his-luck performer who returns to his small-town roots in desolate Edson, New Hampshire. Writing and performing songs about the hardships of mill-town life is a lot better than actually living in such claustrophobic surroundings, as Henry Corvine discovers back in dead-end Edson, where most inhabitants eke out a living at the local shoe factory and unwind at the Polish Community Center. Thirty-seven and divorced, Henry (a man of great artistic integrity and negligible record sales) abandoned his career after the philistines who bought his record label insisted he produce a more commercial sound. Now, after a trip out to Alaska to raise some cash on a salmon boat, Henry finds himself a never-was among the folks in Edson. Except, that is, for Pope Johnson, the toast of the local music scene, who copped Henry's style and songs from his two obscure albums. When Caroline, Henry's twentysomething neighbor, discovers he's the real thing, this innocent Polish Catholic girl sets her sights on the hard-drinking, reticent older man. Hoping to clear his head, and decide his next move, Henry takes off for the mountains for some manly hunting but, being a sensitive guy, is satisfied with the certainty that he could have bagged an ornery bear. He also solves his present dilemma, another crisis of integrity: Should he co- write some songs with his old friend Tyler Beckett, now a hugely successful pop star, or should he take a job in Edson pumping gas? From the moment Henry restrings his old guitar, we know the answer- -he'll compromise, though stay true to himself, of course. Henry's been-there/done-that righteousness is only slightly more annoying than Morrissey's folky syntax and glum authenticity: the cigarettes and coffee, the working-class heroes and barroom hustles.
Pub Date: April 11, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-44629-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 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
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