An evocative, nostalgic coming-of-age tale and examination of bigotry.
A teenager at an East Texas summer camp in 1974 gets involved in a racial dispute in McCandless’ (Sour Lake, 2011) second novel.
The peace-and-love ’60s has devolved into the drug-addled ’70s, and 14-year-old high school student Tommy Lothrup is trying to navigate his way through a confused world. When his parents go off on a summer business trip, he’s sent to Camp Alexandra, known as “Alex,” a seedy summer camp that divides campers into two competing Native American tribes. Although many consider him a longhaired, pot-smoking hippie, Tommy quickly gains a reputation as a cerebral sort and wins friends. He meets a young African-American girl named Alyssha, who works in Alex’s kitchen, and the two become friends, although Tommy hopes that it’s more than just platonic. Unfortunately, racial prejudice is alive and well in East Texas and Tommy finds himself having to try to defuse a bad situation before something terrible happens. McCandless has crafted a multilayered novel. On the one hand, it may bring back memories of high school and holding onto one’s youth while moving relentlessly toward adulthood. On another level, the book is a searing examination of the insidious ways that racial hatred destroys people and relationships. The book also offers a nostalgic trip for anyone who ever attended summer camp and provides a clear snapshot of 1974. Readers who lived then will recognize such references as Boone’s Farm strawberry wine and the popular book Chariots of the Gods?. McCandless also provides engaging descriptions—“The stars skipped around me like living things”—and fills the book with humor: “Jack burped. I called, and raised.” Although the story takes place more than 40 years ago, it’s one that still has relevance in America today.
An evocative, nostalgic coming-of-age tale and examination of bigotry.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-692-26010-4
Page Count: 106
Publisher: Ninth Planet
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
