THE GRAVE OF GOD’S DAUGHTER

Name: THE GRAVE OF GOD’S DAUGHTER
Author: Brett Ellen Block
ISBN: 0-06-052504-5

by Brett Ellen Block ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2004

Sort of a Polish-American Peyton Place: a touching portrait of childhood innocence on a collision course with worldly...

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First novel about a young girl in a Pennsylvania mill town who grows up prematurely by discovering a family secret laid to rest years before.

Drue Heinz winner Block (stories: Destination Known, 2001) takes us to Hyde Bend in the 1940s, a place where all the fathers worked in the steel mill, all the mothers kept house, and everybody knew everybody else’s business. The narrator (unnamed), in her early teens, is a bright but sheltered child whose life is centered on the parish church, where she and her younger brother Martin go to school and her mother cooks for the priest. Her father works the nightshift at the mill and isn’t home much, and the narrator stands in for him somewhat by looking after her brother and keeping him out of trouble. No one in town has a lot money except for Swatka Pani, the miserly old lady who owns most of Hyde Bend’s apartments and has a heart blacker than Allegheny anthracite. When the narrator notices that her mother has begun pawning small items from the house—even her beloved, expensive icon of the Black Madonna—she assumes that her father has been spending the rent money on drink, and she persuades a local butcher to hire her as delivery girl to make ends meet. Anyone who makes deliveries all day will learn a lot about people, of course, and the narrator makes the acquaintance of the creepiest woman in town: a lady whose son grew up to become a priest but committed suicide not long after taking over the local parish. When Swatka Pani is murdered, the mysterious lady tells the narrator who did it—and a few other things beside. Is she a crazy recluse—or the only sane woman in town?

Sort of a Polish-American Peyton Place: a touching portrait of childhood innocence on a collision course with worldly experience—though it ultimately goes far, far over the edge.

Pub Date: April 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-06-052504-5

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE LIGHTNING RULE
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by Brett Ellen Block

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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.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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by Harper Lee

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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.