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The Ghost, Josephine

Tightly paced, controlled, and written with a sure grasp of character and voice, Rau’s novel is a formidable debut.

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Grief and loss haunt a laborer from a small town in Maine in Rau’s well-written debut.

Barry Cook lives a lonely life. He’s mostly friendless except for his stalwart older brother, Ray, and ekes out a hand-to-mouth existence as a day laborer, marinating in sadness, dread, and the occasional fit of rage. Twenty-five years earlier he was instrumental in finding and saving two tourists in a turn of events most consider supernatural, and Barry has been running from that perception ever since. However, a rich man with nothing in his life but time and money comes to town with a proposition for Barry: help him find and exorcise the ghost of his long-missing daughter. With mounting bills, no heat or power in his house, and a lifetime of bad behavior behind him, the loner doesn’t see any other option but to do what the man asks. But Barry has his own ghosts to deal with. Rau writes with a flair for detail, nailing physical settings and character traits efficiently (“My feet feel like blocks of wood, only vaguely in league with my legs as I hurry to the bathroom; the waning day like a battery burning down”). Surrounded by the wreckage of his inability to handle the events of a quarter-century ago, Barry is a man wracked by rage and sorrow, possessing a complex inner life but failing to communicate what’s in his heart, and Rau perfectly captures his contradictions and complexities. There’s little sunshine in Barry’s world, and Rau doesn’t cheat readers by manufacturing an upbeat finale. The conclusion to Barry’s story leaves room for optimism, but it doesn’t stint on portraying darkness or making characters reap the consequences of their actions.

Tightly paced, controlled, and written with a sure grasp of character and voice, Rau’s novel is a formidable debut.

Pub Date: July 31, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-692-49058-7

Page Count: 260

Publisher: SmallPub

Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015

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MAGIC HOUR

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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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

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