Precisely observed characters, keen prose and a sure sense of how we simultaneously complicate and survive our lives make...
The pressures of the examined life reshape priorities and relationships among an expanding and contracting extended family of urban intellectuals.
Morton’s fourth novel (A Window Across the River, 2003, etc.) moves with brisk efficiency among linked subplots concerning respected literary novelist Adam Weller (63, and involved with a much younger woman), his resentful ex Eleanor (a psychologist) and their youngest child, Maud, a lecturer and Ph.D. candidate in philosophy with a history of inchoate commitments and nervous breakdowns. Maud seems to be emerging from her lifelong fragility when she falls for Samir, an Arab-American carpenter whose continuing sorrow over the death of his three-year-old daughter will be gradually assuaged after Maud informs him she’s pregnant. Eleanor, obese and depressed, stubbornly resists the chance for happiness offered by Patrick, who has spent his life as a labor activist, but reserved the energy to pursue her again, even after 40 years. Meanwhile, the wily Adam (a self-justifying careerist whose expressive egotism is reminiscent of more than one Saul Bellow character) sees an opportunity to embellish his reputation when Ruth, widow of eminent novelist (and Adam’s mentor) Isidore Cantor, produces the completed manuscript of her husband’s “unknown” novel, then dies—before anyone but Adam knows of the book’s existence. Abetted by his brazen mistress Thea (employed as an assistant to TV interviewer Charlie Rose), Adam—as usual—thrives. Others around him are less fortunate. Eleanor settles for sublimating her happiness in tending others’ needs. Maud loses one great love, gains another and—paradoxically—acquires a wisdom beyond her elders’ grasp. A philosopher to the core, she assures another afflicted soul (her wheelchair-bound confidant Ralph) that “We must imagine Sisyphus happy”; and, drawing the inevitable conclusion, accepts that “The law of life . . . is striving.”
Precisely observed characters, keen prose and a sure sense of how we simultaneously complicate and survive our lives make this one something special.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2006
ISBN: 0-15-101192-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
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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