A deftly told tale that will charm more than it surprises.
A perceptive, clear-eyed take on the familiar three-generations-of-women-finding-redemption theme.
Children’s author Meyer’s first adult novel is narrated alternately by grandmother Lavinia and her daughter Dorcas, who have not been especially close over the years. When Lavinia, an octogenarian widow famed for her paintings of Amish farm life, unveils a series of erotic nude paintings at the annual town art show, the town is shocked. Even the national media has shown interest. Dorcas, a divorced teacher in her mid-50s who lives in Connecticut, alerted by an old friend, hurries home to Juniata, Pennsylvania, to see for herself. Dorcas’s job bores her, an affair is going nowhere, and she’s ready for a change. Staying with the feisty and opinionated Lavinia, Dorcas sneaks a peak at the picture her mother has hidden: the woman in the paintings is clearly a young Lavinia, but the handsome nude man is a stranger. When Dorcas impulsively decides to buy a once-grand old house, and turn it into a B&B, Lavinia isn’t sure it’s good idea, and says so. But Dorcas goes ahead and, with the help of old high-school buddy Rod, a recently divorced local builder, she successfully completes the renovation. While Dorcas is busy developing her business and contending with Rod’s interest in her, Lavinia decides to write her memoirs, revealing that she had an affair with the handsome young nude, once a stonecutter employed by her father. Dorcas also revisits her past when daughter Sasha arrives from California, pregnant and with a lesbian lover, en route to see her dying father, Alex (and whom Sasha adores, though Dorcas never loved him). As family secrets, old and new, are revealed—Lavinia is going blind, Sasha feels alienated from her lover—the three women draw closer.
A deftly told tale that will charm more than it surprises.Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-882593-68-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Bridge Works
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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