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
A presold prefab blockbuster, what with King's Carrie hitting the moviehouses, Salem's Lot being lensed, The Shining itself sold to Warner Bros. and tapped as a Literary Guild full selection, NAL paperback, etc. (enough activity to demand an afterlife to consummate it all).
The setting is The Overlook, a palatial resort on a Colorado mountain top, snowbound and closed down for the long, long winter. Jack Torrance, a booze-fighting English teacher with a history of violence, is hired as caretaker and, hoping to finish a five-act tragedy he's writing, brings his wife Wendy and small son Danny to the howling loneliness of the half-alive and mad palazzo. The Overlook has a gruesome past, scenes from which start popping into the present in various suites and the ballroom. At first only Danny, gifted with second sight (he's a "shiner"), can see them; then the whole family is being zapped by satanic forces. The reader needs no supersight to glimpse where the story's going as King's formula builds to a hotel reeling with horrors during Poesque New Year's Eve revelry and confetti outta nowhere....
Back-prickling indeed despite the reader's unwillingness at being mercilessly manipulated.
Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1976
ISBN: 0385121679
Page Count: 453
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1976
PERSPECTIVES
A perfect summer cocktail of sex, sun and scandal.
Nantucket artist ponders a tryst.
An accomplished glassblower, Claire Danner Crispin set aside her work to raise her children. Indeed, for most of her life Claire has followed the rules and been a reliable friend, wife and mother. All that changes when she is asked to co-chair Nantucket’s annual Summer Gala to benefit the children’s programs on the island. Wealthy Lock Dixon personally asks Claire to contribute her time and talents. Claire says yes. Soon she finds herself in the arms of Lock, who offers relief from the monotony of her marriage and the demands of caring for four youngsters. It’s fun to watch Claire give in to her desires. As the Gala nears, a threat of exposure looms. As an artist, Claire knows that creating something of value and beauty requires sacrifice, love and a strong will. The question is: Does Claire value her newfound passion more than her marriage? There are a few too many loose ends to make the novel fully satisfying: Hilderbrand (Barefoot, 2007, etc.) writes herself into a corner by introducing too many characters to track. But witnessing Claire’s walk on the dark side is pure voyeuristic fun.
A perfect summer cocktail of sex, sun and scandal.Pub Date: July 2, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-316-01860-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2008
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