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AND THE WORD WAS

Name: AND THE WORD WAS
Author: Bruce Bauman
ISBN: 1-59051-141-7

by Bruce Bauman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2005

A moving setup is followed by lugubrious musings and digressions, achieving the remarkable feat of making India dull.

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With contemporary India as backdrop, this debut tale of grief and recovery follows the quest of an American doctor to rediscover meaning after the violent death of his son.

When nine-year-old Castor is fatally shot in a Columbine-style school massacre, Neil Downs is unfortunate enough to be the ER surgeon on duty as the casualties come in. He hears his own child’s final words and helplessly watches him die. His wife proves hard to contact, finally turning up in the bed of a colleague. Furthermore, Neil finds himself famous overnight, prey to journalists wanting to know how it feels to have his child shot to pieces. This background story is rendered with such emotional power that a reader can overlook blunders in style, while the remaining bulk of the narrative, set in a contemporary Delhi that teems as much with clichés as it does with beggars, is less gripping. Seeking release from his grief, Neil finds a Holocaust survivor and writer, Levi Furstenblum, who lectures him on means of surviving when robbed of a belief in God’s goodness. This plot line, embellished by excerpts from Furstenblum’s philosophical writings, is undercut by the fact that none of the characters has ever at any time believed in God. Neil’s affair with the radical, and radically wealthy, Holika is likewise enfeebled since she’s engaged, contented to be so, and has no intention of pursuing her liaison with Neil, whose appeal to her never quite becomes clear. A complex subplot involving local political chicanery, political art espousing the cause of Indian womanhood, and corporate deal-making, dilutes more than enriches the tale. A quick-fix, unconvincing close leaves the reader with an aftertaste of the saccharine.

A moving setup is followed by lugubrious musings and digressions, achieving the remarkable feat of making India dull.

Pub Date: April 1, 2005

ISBN: 1-59051-141-7

Page Count: 350

Publisher: Other Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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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

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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.