Cohen (Little Black Lies, 2009, etc.) knows how to focus on character in ways that make readers care.
A father abducts his daughter, flees to Los Angeles from their home in Toronto, creates a new identity for the two of them, lives in anonymity for eight years—and then gets diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s just as his wife catches up with him.
At the age of 20, Delilah Blue—now Lila Mack—finds herself posing nude for an art class, for she wants to become an artist. She has talent but no money, and she hopes to pick up pointers from crusty art professor Julian Lichtenstein (aka Lichty), far less well known than his famous second cousin, Roy. Until now she’s had little confusion about her identity: Her father Victor has persuaded her that her mother, Elisabeth, didn’t want her, and Lila readily accepts this explanation. It turns out, however, that flaky mom is now in L.A. (along with Lila’s seven-year-old half-sister) because a Canadian psychic had told her she’d find her daughter there. Elisabeth—an artist manqué—keeps checking art galleries for evidence of her daughter’s existence and eventually finds a nude sketch of her. Mom is rather vindictive because it appears Victor has been feeding Lila a line—although he kidnapped her to get her away from her mom’s lax maternal qualities and her spacey artiste, dope-smoking friends, all the time mom had been searching for her daughter. Victor now has problems of his own, however, for even though he’s only 53, he’s forgetting his appointments—and showing up at odd times—as a salesman for a medical-supplies company. He’s also becoming more irrational and impulsive. (A symptom of the problem emerges when he steals a dog left temporarily in his care.) Elisabeth wants to prosecute her husband for kidnapping, but Lila—who ultimately assumes her original and rightful name of Delilah—acts like the only adult in this dysfunctional trio by trying to protect and care for her father and fend off the mother’s pent-up aggression.
Cohen (Little Black Lies, 2009, etc.) knows how to focus on character in ways that make readers care.Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-375-83672-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
No one captures the flavor and experience of a summer place—the outdoor showers, the seafood, the sand in the...
A celebrity chef’s sudden death leaves his widow, exes, children, and best friend in a quandary.
And since this is a Hilderbrand novel, is there any doubt that the dilemma involves Nantucket real estate? A somewhat dilapidated (or at least, dated) and decidedly downscale beachfront cottage known as American Paradise serves as plot driver and central symbol. As his success grew, Chef Deacon Thorpe bought the house with his first wife, Laurel, as a repository of happy memories for his son, Hayes—the kind that Deacon himself had been denied. (He had one idyllic day on Nantucket with his own father, who then mysteriously and permanently disappeared.) Deacon and Laurel never wanted to upgrade the house, and there are still reminders of earlier inhabitants, including a ghost supposedly occupying the smallest attic room. Now, Deacon has died (on the cottage’s back deck, of a coronary), leaving nothing but debt. American Paradise is facing foreclosure due to the three mortgages Deacon took out, unbeknownst to his family. Surprisingly, or perhaps not given Deacon’s (and Hilderbrand’s) sense of humor, he has left the place to his three spouses, current and former—Laurel, Belinda, the movie star he left her for, and official widow Scarlett, the Southern belle who was the nanny for his and Belinda's adopted daughter, Angie. Best friend Buck, Deacon’s long-suffering fiduciary, has called the wives and children to American Paradise to scatter Deacon’s ashes and—a duty Buck has been dreading—read the will. Each member of this unique blended family has a say, as they squabble over turf and mull over their past and ongoing missteps, loves, and addictions. Angie, a talented chef in her own right, prepares lavish meals (rendered in mouthwatering detail, including recipes). The question looms—if Deacon’s Nantucket legacy can’t be shared, can it be saved?
No one captures the flavor and experience of a summer place—the outdoor showers, the seafood, the sand in the floorboards—like Hilderbrand.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-37514-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Florian’s seventh collection of verse is also his most uneven; though the flair for clever rhyme that consistently lights up his other books, beginning with Monster Motel (1993), occasionally shows itself—“Hello, my name is Dracula/My clothing is all blackula./I drive a Cadillacula./I am a maniacula”—too many of the entries are routine limericks, putdowns, character portraits, rhymed lists that fall flat on the ear, or quick quips: “It’s hard to be anonymous/When you’re a hippopotamus.” Florian’s language and simple, thick-lined cartoons illustrations are equally ingenuous, and he sticks to tried-and-true subjects, from dinosaurs to school lunch, but the well of inspiration seems dry; revisit his hilarious Bing Bang Boing (1994) instead. (index) (Poetry. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-202084-5
Page Count: 158
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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