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THE HALDANES

Name: THE HALDANES
Author: Caroline Crosby
ISBN: 0-312-09303-9

by Caroline Crosby ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 1993

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An intriguing departure for Jessica Stirling, writing as Crosby, from her chronicles of struggle and bootstrap triumphs in 19th-century Glasgow and from the richly peopled courtroom period drama (Lantern for the Dark, 1992): here, in a 1920's tale set mainly in a girls' boarding school in Scotland, an insecure and lonely 15-year-old girl finds direction and a kind of security. Pretty, flirty Barbara, Pauline's mother, took off with a lover when Pauline was eight, leaving her with her adored father, Harry. Life in London is good, then, until Barbara's own father- -fierce old Grandfather Haldane—forces Harry to take a job in South Africa and sends Pauline to St. Austin's, the ``family'' boarding school in Scotland. In the meantime, Barbara's lover has died, and she is now pregnant by—and awaiting marriage to— unpleasant Mark Straker. Pauline's misery will lift at the school, where there are friends, although her horrid cousin Stella— acidulous, sexy, mean as a hornet—is also there. At Christmastime, Pauline spends the holiday with the Haldanes in their handsome country home, a time of both jollity, with male cousins and a rough but kindly uncle, and nervous recognitions: of Barbara's unhappiness, Mark's callousness, and Stella's predation. It is on the trip back to school with Stella that Pauline gains the upper hand—to embrace a sister the family shunned—with the result that she can return to school ``safer than she had ever been.'' A leisurely period novel, in tune with its times and upper- caste juvenilia—but the long outdated British slang and mores will undoubtedly deter American teens who might be attracted by Pauline's dilemma. Before its delicately poignant coda, the novel offers some tangy talk, a great house-hunt, and school banter. It's all there, ``old son,'' for anyone yearning for an Anglophilic bash.

Pub Date: July 21, 1993

ISBN: 0-312-09303-9

Page Count: 352

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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

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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...

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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.).