No surprise that negotiations for a television series are already under way; think Sex and the City in black.
On the heels of her memoir (What Remains, 2005) about the death of her husband, who happened to be Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ nephew, Real Housewives of New York regular Radziwill returns with a glib, comic, probably autobiographical novel about a young Manhattan widow looking for love in all the wrong places.
Thirty-something journalist Claire’s domineering, much older husband, Charlie, a famous author and sexology expert, is walking down Madison Avenue after an adulterous assignation when a fake Giacometti statue falls off a crane and kills him. Although the nine-year marriage lacked passion, Claire finds herself at sea. Not that she’s anyone’s average widow; she lives in a gorgeous apartment and is gorgeous herself. Charlie has left an unfinished manuscript about a movie star named Jack Huxley, and his agent wants Claire to complete it. Her predictably gay friend, Ethan, sends her to a psychic, who warns her she will not find love for a year. Her best friend, Sasha, who is also an alcoholic and as shallow as a leaky wading pool, sends her to a “botanomanist,” who tells Claire pretty much the same thing. Neither of Claire’s two therapists is optimistic, either. After six months of widowhood, Claire is anxious to “get laid,” so she goes on three failed dates, one with a successful journalist, one with a billionaire and, finally, one with a hockey star. She meets and flirts with Jack at the opening of one of his films but gets drunk and ends up sleeping with the co-star (think Bradley Cooper instead of George Clooney, poor girl). Eventually, she and narcissist Jack do connect and begin an affair of sorts; it is magic when they are together, but they are together only when he calls, which is not often. Will she grow out of Jack and into someone better? This may be a grief and recovery story for the privileged, but sharp-fanged Radziwill can be pretty funny as she mocks Claire’s friends and family.
No surprise that negotiations for a television series are already under way; think Sex and the City in black.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9884-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2014
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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
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