More psychopathology as fiction by the author of Family (1987), Jealousies (1983), etc., this time about a troubled teen named Lee and the people she damages. True, Lee's damaged herself to begin with when her beloved mother, a gym teacher in Philadelphia, dies of cancer. Much too soon afterward, her father brings home an abrasive new wife, and Lee turns bad, staying out late, boozing, acting like a slut, and eventually running away altogether with nice-guy Jim Archer, a pharmacology student in Baltimore. By 19, Lee's pregnant, lonely, smothering beneath Jim's love, and trapped ``in a web of false forevers that made her panic to escape.'' So the day after she delivers a little girl—whom Jim will name Joanna—Lee absconds (sans baby), getting to know the shoulders of roads and cheap motel rooms in Richmond, Atlanta, Lubbock, and finally Madison, Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Jim's in shock and remains so for over a year (``How could someone just disappear? Presto change-o''). But by the time seven years pass, he falls in love again—with a redheaded nurse—and gets Lee proclaimed legally dead so that he can marry Lila. Meanwhile, hunkered down in Madison, a very undead Lee lands a job at a restaurant, forming difficult relationships with its owner, Valerie, her brother Andy, and Valerie's impossible adopted daughter, Karen. The little girl gets Lee thinking about the baby (and husband) she left behind. So, before the close, Lee heads back east to reveal herself to Jim, Lila, and Joanna, creating havoc from which—the author tries to suggest—healing will come. As protagonist, Lee's a tough sell, and even though Leavitt does everything she can to explain why the girl does the rotten things she does, she doesn't capture her voice—which keeps the justifications purely clinical. Some attractive prose, then, but beyond that the effect is anesthetizing.
Pub Date: Feb. 16, 1993
ISBN: 0-446-51704-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...
Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga (Firefly Lane, 2008, etc.).
At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters and understanding of family dynamics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008
A presold prefab blockbuster, what with King's Carrie hitting the moviehouses, Salem's Lot being lensed, The Shining itself sold to Warner Bros. and tapped as a Literary Guild full selection, NAL paperback, etc. (enough activity to demand an afterlife to consummate it all).
The setting is The Overlook, a palatial resort on a Colorado mountain top, snowbound and closed down for the long, long winter. Jack Torrance, a booze-fighting English teacher with a history of violence, is hired as caretaker and, hoping to finish a five-act tragedy he's writing, brings his wife Wendy and small son Danny to the howling loneliness of the half-alive and mad palazzo. The Overlook has a gruesome past, scenes from which start popping into the present in various suites and the ballroom. At first only Danny, gifted with second sight (he's a "shiner"), can see them; then the whole family is being zapped by satanic forces. The reader needs no supersight to glimpse where the story's going as King's formula builds to a hotel reeling with horrors during Poesque New Year's Eve revelry and confetti outta nowhere....
Back-prickling indeed despite the reader's unwillingness at being mercilessly manipulated.
Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1976
ISBN: 0385121679
Page Count: 453
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1976
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