bookshelf

DEBATABLE LAND

Name: DEBATABLE LAND
Author: Candia McWilliam
ISBN: 0-385-26310-4

by Candia McWilliam ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 13, 1995

bookshelf

In this British import, McWilliam (A Little Stranger, 1989) imposes her florid voice on Scots and others making a Pacific journey by boat from Papeete, Tahiti. On board are three Scots: Alex, a painter who has recently ended a long relationship and has signed on to work; owner-skipper Logan; and his dissatisfied second wife, Elspeth. Also traveling are the attractive Englishwoman Gabriel, who will serve as cook, and Sandro and Nick, practiced sailors who hail from New Zealand and England, respectively. Periodically, the Scottish characters sink into long reveries about home (Alex, in particular, rethinks his past intensely), and the usual occurrences among strangers sharing close quarters take place (e.g., Logan and Gabriel sleep together). A habit of switching abruptly from one character's interior thoughts to another's without warning confuses occasionally, but it is McWilliam's descriptions that are truly problematic. Her style is like a wild animal, beautiful and powerful, but also undisciplined. She is so enamored of her own vocabulary that she often obscures very basic information, like the trip's destination. Everything is given equal weight here: Alex's memory of an Italian grocery in Edinburgh is described in the most minute detail, including a paragraph about how the butter was apportioned, for no apparent reason. Many of the similes and metaphors are stunning—a dying woman's last breath ``had come from its mouth like a saw''—but arrive so thickly that they begin to irritate with their insistence. Though graceful, unnecessary descriptions still irk. The dialogue, in particular, is creaky and laden with verbal chaff. ``In small enclosed places with highly organised finite interdependencies you can't afford to unbalance a single thing,'' Nick announces when discussing the ecological makeup of islands. Utilizing lovely literary prose is like spelling banana: You have to know when to stop.

Pub Date: March 13, 1995

ISBN: 0-385-26310-4

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Nan A. Talese

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

bookshelf

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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

bookshelf

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.