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THE DISTANT LAND OF MY FATHER

Name: THE DISTANT LAND OF MY FATHER
Author: Bo Caldwell
ISBN: 0-8118-3240-6

A NOVEL OF SHANGHAI

by Bo Caldwell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2001

An elegant, refined story of families, wartime, and the mystique of memory.

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A daughter tries to understand her father’s long absences from her life in this effective and accomplished debut.

Cleaning out her father’s scruffy bachelor apartment after his funeral, Anna Schoene discovers his copiously detailed journals. They transport this 30-year-old mother of two from Southern California back to her childhood in Shanghai, where she lived with her mother and father just before WWII. Born in China, the son of missionaries, Joseph Schoene is at once flamboyantly American yet fiercely committed to the land of his birth. The charismatic, dashing chief of a quasi-legal import/export business in Shanghai, he means the world to his more proper American wife and adoring daughter. Enraptured with the city’s sights and smells, he imparts this love to Anna: “My father handed Shanghai down to me as though it were an inheritance, a family treasure meant only for me.” But encroaching Japanese soldiers and floods of refugees make the city less and less tenable until, on the eve of war, Anna and her mother board a ship for America. Joseph resolutely stays behind, insisting that it will all blow over. But soon occupying Japanese troops throw him into a prison camp, where he barely survives. Meanwhile, in California, Anna and her mother are adjusting to a quieter life of school, laundry, and sunshine. Caldwell’s prose is remarkably even and detailed; she seamlessly weaves together Anna’s own memories with those of her father, gleaned from the journals. Many of the Shanghai scenes are undeniably reminiscent of J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun, but the voice is Caldwell’s own. Anna’s emotionally reticent narration can seem almost stuffy, but it helps keep this from descending into the mawkishness common in such father-daughter tales. And the vivid evocation of Shanghai’s potent sights, sounds, and smells has all the excitement you could want.

An elegant, refined story of families, wartime, and the mystique of memory.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-8118-3240-6

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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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.