One of those quietly resonant novels that memorably portray a family and a place as time presses on.
A multigenerational Canadian bestseller in which distinctive characters respond gallantly to love, death, and life's unexpected assaults on family happiness.
Set in a small Ontario town on the shores of Lake Huron, the story begins slowly as it introduces the town and the Chambers family. The year is 1949, and Bill Chambers, a navy veteran who lost three fingers from his right hand in battle, is happily working again at the local hardware store. His wife Sylvia, a lively and wise woman, is a homemaker; their children, Patrick, Daphne, and Paul, are still in school. In the summer of 1952, 15-year-old Patrick's friend Murray McFarlane, the only son of wealthy but elderly parents, decides to produce a circus. But on opening night, Daphne, 12, who was to be the acrobat, falls mid-performance and badly breaks her jaw. Shortly after the accident, Sylvia becomes terminally ill. The family is strong and loving, but her death will continue to affect them in the years ahead. Even Murray, who loves Daphne and spends most of his time with the Chambers brood, will recall Sylvia's perceptive advice to him. Bill soon remarries, and his new bride, 40-ish Margaret—a beautifully rendered character: perceptive, generous, and sensitive—holds the family together in the years ahead. Prize-winning newcomer Burnard, who has published two story collections in Canada, occasionally renders the the passage of time too abruptly by using significant events as markers: the birth of Margaret and Bill's daughter Sarah; Paul's unexpected death; unmarried Daphne's two pregnancies; as well as weddings and divorces. But she deftly traces the impact of all these joyful and sad occurrences on the whole family. Margaret's ordeal in the 1990s, as she copes with Bill's dementia, is especially moving.
One of those quietly resonant novels that memorably portray a family and a place as time presses on.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2000
ISBN: 0-8050-6495-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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