Leithauser (Equal Distance, 1984; Hence, 1988) peers uncertainly into the more remote corners of the middle-class soul- -in this sadly prosaic account of grief and desire. Terry Seward is a 40-ish Washington lawyer who sees his dead wife one night in a Virginia swamp. This is not really the sort of thing he's equipped for: the son of an insurance actuary, Terry manages to temper the imagination of a bureaucrat with all the spontaneity of a mortician. Since most of his Washington friends seem as embarrassed by Terry's revelation as he is himself, he goes afield to Baltimore to seek the advice of Curly Kopp, a lunatic pet-shop keeper who was Terry's freshman roommate at Princeton. Kopp's willingness to accept the reality of Terry's vision encourages him to reconsider the state of things and helps him to imagine the existence of worlds he had never dreamt of. He drops out of his law firm and sets off on what soon becomes recognizable as a pilgrimage to no particular place. Leithauser is very good at setting his scenes, and he manages to make Terry's disorientation all the more palpable by enclosing it within a conventional narrative that is largely inhabited by stereotypes (the cute coeds, the macho law partner, etc.), but there is a disconcerting laxity to the plot—as if the author were as embarrassed as Terry himself is about the mysticism inherent in the story, and had determined to rein it in as much as he could. This is all the more disappointing because those scenes that deal directly with Terry's vision carry a tremendous power. Ultimately, they end up buried beneath the chitchat of a thoroughly formulaic novel that they should have transfigured. An honest failure by a true master: had Leithauser only tightened (and shortened) the plot he could have hit the mark, but he dawdles his way through and loses his chance.
Pub Date: May 18, 1993
ISBN: 0-394-58587-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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