BLUE DOG, GREEN RIVER

Name: BLUE DOG, GREEN RIVER
Author: Brock Brower
ISBN: 1-56792-280-5

by Brock Brower & illustrated by Nancy Lawton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2005

Told from several points of view, Blue Dog’s tale doesn’t always hang together, and, ultimately, there’s not much to it. But...

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A thin, sometimes disjointed if gracefully written novella set in the remotest backcountry the Southwest has to offer.

Blue Dog—a pound mutt with one blue and one brown eye and a habit of pilfering cooked food and massacring animals still afoot—has gone missing. Either that or, mutters desert/river rat Paul Nozik, “I spaced the dog.” Nozik knows the dangerous ways of the Green River, Brower (The Late Great Creature, 1971, etc.) lets it be known, and he has reason to worry about Blue Dog, who’s “gimpy” from having been shot “in the left hinder, for stealing chickens.” But Blue Dog, bless her heart, is resourceful: having fallen overboard, she makes it to shore, then stages a fruitful raid on another raft expedition’s camp. Blue Dog is lucky, too: where those who float the Green sometimes talk of seeing prehistoric Anasazi Indian ghosts, Blue Dog actually falls into the company of a mysterious Ancient One who bears more than a passing resemblance to Kokopelli, the humpbacked flautist of legend. The nameless Indian, “naked down to his think bones, with an old, leathery skin like sun-stiffened hide stretched over them,” is happy enough to share his store of jerky, which, Blue Dog soon learns, has ominous origins. Chased by storms and river-runners, old man and dog traverse wild country that gets wilder in the telling; Blue Dogs even acquires a few supercanine abilities, saving drowning rafters and scaling tall cliffs effortlessly. In the end, order is restored to the worlds of human and dog alike—even if Blue Dog now does what no human can do: namely, serve two masters.

Told from several points of view, Blue Dog’s tale doesn’t always hang together, and, ultimately, there’s not much to it. But Brower—who, it appears, hasn’t been heard from much in 30 years—writes with exuberance and assurance, and readers who know the canyon country (and chicken-thieving dogs, for that matter) ought to enjoy this strange story.

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2005

ISBN: 1-56792-280-5

Page Count: 112

Publisher: Godine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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PUTTING AMERICA'S HOUSE IN ORDER
by David M. Abshire & Brock Brower

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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.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

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THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

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THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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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.