A slim bit of dialogue-heavy, lightweight fare that strains believability but gets a surprising amount of mileage out of its...
A writer struggles with a unique case of multiple-personality disorder in this farce, the first novel in over a decade from veteran screenwriter, director and actor Reiner (All Kinds of Love, 1993).
Middle-aged author Nat Noland doesn’t just talk to himself—he has extended, vociferous debates with himself, and that has understandably begun to trouble his wife, Glennie. That problem, combined with the fact that his fifth novel is turning into a blasphemous rewrite of Genesis, prompts him to call in a psychiatrist, Dr. Frucht, for some mental repair work. (Noland dubs each novel-in-progress “N,” making his fifth novel “NNNNN.”) The “empathologist” across the hall from Frucht, Dr. Gertrude Trampleasure, further upends Noland’s world when she tells him he looks remarkably like the man who broke her heart when she was a schoolgirl. Investigating further, Noland learns that he is, in fact, a triplet. His father, a greedy and detestable orphanage owner, seduced a traveling showgirl and convinced her to give the baby up for adoption; when she balked shortly before going into labor, he ran her car off the road, killing her, then performed a c-section to save the infants, which he sold separately to wealthy clients. At first glance, that’s not exactly fertile territory for a breezy comic novel, but Reiner has the right idea—the setup anchors the story and lends some legitimacy to the loopy subplots that follow (cases of mistaken identity are rampant). The final plot twist threatens to make the tale feel completely untenable, but like any self-respecting farce author, Reiner capably ties the various plot points together.
A slim bit of dialogue-heavy, lightweight fare that strains believability but gets a surprising amount of mileage out of its absurd premise and characters.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2006
ISBN: 0-7432-8669-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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