bookshelf

DISLOCATION

Name: DISLOCATION
Author: Caroline Walsh
ISBN: 0-7867-1206-6

STORIES FROM A NEW IRELAND

edited by Caroline Walsh ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2003

Some nice shades of green but not much of a palette: Celtophiles will find plenty of sustenance here, but for most others it...

bookshelf

Eleven stories by different authors, all set in a modern Ireland poised uncomfortably between traditional certainties and contemporary hopes.

Although the “Celtic Tiger” seems to have lost its fangs in the past few years, Ireland’s astonishing economic growth of the last decade has transformed the country for keeps—and not all are happy with the changes. Walsh has brought together young (or youngish) voices here to illustrate the distance traveled from the old sod to the new. Some are frankly nostalgic: Claire Keegan’s “Night of the Quicken Trees” describes the touching courtship of a classic Irish bachelor farmer (he lets his goat sleep on his bed) and a wild, haunted woman who is a skilled healer (toads figure prominently in many of her remedies). Other pieces are more wistful: Tom Humphries’ “Australia Day” watches, through the eyes of an alienated pub owner, the gradual transformation of a ramshackle country village into a glitzy tourist trap (“I couldn’t draw you a map of where is where anymore”), while Aidan Matthews’s “Barber-Surgeons” follows the transformations of the 1960s from the perspective of a lonely small-town barber whose experience of the larger world is limited to his conversations with his customers. Some of the portrayals are downright hostile: The bohemian Dublin yobs of Sean O’Reilly’s “Playboy” are nihilistic thugs of the Graham Swift/James Kellman stripe, while the hotshot businessman of Keith Ridgeway’s “Grid Work” is little more than a well-paid zombie. The best piece is “It’s a Miracle,” by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne: Quietly powerful (somewhat in the style of William Trevor), it concerns the shadowy, emotionally isolated life of a divorced librarian whose life is almost changed by a chance meeting with an unhappy Italian in a Vienna restaurant.

Some nice shades of green but not much of a palette: Celtophiles will find plenty of sustenance here, but for most others it will be about as tasty as a plate of boiled potatoes and cabbage.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-7867-1206-6

Page Count: 336

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

bookshelf

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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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.