This debut by a Michigan educational assessor is very much a book, not a collection of individual poems, all about the turn- of-century murderer known as Jack the Ripper. It’s also easy to see why Richard Howard, who, as the series editor, provides an introduction, was attracted to Buchanan’s elaborate construction: the bulk of the poems are dramatic monologues, a form best practiced in our time by Howard himself. The first sections of this grim volume are the weakest: Jack addresses a number of the women he murdered, providing the sick rationale for his acts. In one case, he fancies himself a poet inspired by Poe, in another an avenging angel. Each victim responds in kind: one sees her parents in Jack’s evil face, another speaks from the afterlife of vengeful witchcraft, and, best of all, one dispels his Poe pretensions. Buchanan’s voices in this early section seldom vary, and Jack sounds more like Jack Nicholson in The Shining than any fin de siäcle rogue. Buchanan interrupts his book with a prose section, “Ripperology,” that rehearses the evidence for the main real-life suspects in the case. After this, his verse truly takes off: each Jack, in language suitable to his background, explains his reasons for murder: the butcher confesses his grotesque love of necrophilia, cannibalism, and sex with meat; a priest describes sacramental killing as God’s will; and the failed poet (a real-life tutor to the Queen’s grandson) relies on bad ballads and rhymes to justify his actions. The two most plausible suspects, the Queen’s physician and her grandson, the Duke of Clarence, are motivated by drug-addiction and syphilitic madness. The woman-hating language of the speakers and the gruesome details of their actions are not for the faint of heart. But Buchanan has achieved something clever and powerful here: he’s revealed the mysteries of identity at the heart of a Victorian murder mystery.
Pub Date: July 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-57003-297-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Univ. of South Carolina
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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