Limerick-writer Spaight debuts with a stark and striking first novel—the tale of an Irishwoman who overcomes a tortured upbringing to find her way in the working world and, ultimately, her liberation as a single mother. It wasn't enough for Elizabeth Wallace to have an alcoholic, abusive father who began raping her at age five: She also had to cope with her unstable, friendless mother, whose behavior included nocturnal visits to their rich neighbor's garage, visits culminating in arson and suicide. From this awful life Elizabeth was rescued at 16 by a factory job, where she soon began having adventures with her coworkers—other young, single women. But as time passed, the others married and quit work, while Elizabeth stayed without attachments. Once she fell for a man who talked with her about the books she read during breaks at work; but her inability to speak of the past and her inexperience with men doomed the relationship—although not before she had followed the man home and thrown herself at him. It isn't until her father's death that Elizabeth, by then in her mid-30s, can vent her rage by defacing his grave and begin to have a life that's really her own. A vacation trip alone to Ibiza provides a sexual experience in which Elizabeth has complete control, so that she can finally proceed willingly and with ease to the next stage in her liberation: being a parent without a partner. Frank in its depiction of the long, painful recovery from childhood abuse, Spaight's clear voice sends a strong message in the cause of equality and independence for women.
Pub Date: Nov. 17, 1997
ISBN: 1-898256-23-3
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Dufour
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997
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
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