bookshelf

THE HEDGE, THE RIBBON

Name: THE HEDGE, THE RIBBON
Author: Carol Orlock
ISBN: 0-913089-48-6

by Carol Orlock ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 1993

bookshelf

Whimsical stories told by an anonymous caregiver to her aged charge that intertwine like the ribbon and the hedge of the title- -all to create a history of a person and a place in a novel that won a 1993 Western States Book Award. Small-town Milford is a ``happy-face/have-a-nice-day sort of place''—nothing terrible happens there, nobody's ever nasty, and tragedy and doubt are concepts as foreign as murder and mayhem. In this very white-bread environment, Orlock (The Goddess Letters, 1987; Inner Time, p. 919) uses a genteel Protestant sort of magic realism to give a literary gloss to the tales told on each visit to the frail and ailing Amzie Latham. Amzie lives in a house overgrown by an almost impenetrable hedge that has closed off the gate and is now reaching for the third floor. The stories, told chronologically, move from her childhood, when young Amzie went around asking neighbors to will the snow to keep falling, to a motor trip she took with retired husband Tom. In between, we twice meet old Mrs. Madden, who owned the house originally—once when she goes downtown in a futile search for free daffodils; and again when she takes a bus ride that becomes a gentle metaphorical journey to death. Meanwhile, Tom Latham, for whom ``the future was a real thing,'' has his own story, as do artist daughter Betsy, who specialized in making replicas of everything, including the town itself; an amnesiac former spy called ``Mr. Twelveclocks'' (he wears numerous watches); the local pharmacist, who falls in love with a fake Rembrandt portrait; a ghost who offers Amzie tea; and others who all experience something pleasantly off-kilter. Nice stories, nicely told, about a very nice place with nice people who need a bit of a reality check to bring them fully to life.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1993

ISBN: 0-913089-48-6

Page Count: 312

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

- SEEN & HEARD
The Snowy Day Is NYC Library’s Most Popular Book

- SEEN & HEARD
ALA Releases List of 2020’s Most Challenged Books

- SEEN & HEARD
NYT Readers Voting on Best Book of Past 125 Years

bookshelf

DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

bookshelf

Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).