As this story’s heroine evolves from being merely boring to fundamentally loathsome, so too does her tale.
In her second novel (Glorie, 1998), a New York Times culture critic travels back to the 1920s to tell a story of uptown society and the downtown art scene.
Caroline Stephens is an heiress and socialite, married to a rich but unexciting man. She feels stifled by her privileged existence, and she has nothing but scorn for the “self-important businessmen” and “interchangeable wives” who inhabit her circle. Then she discovers art, and she becomes a collector and patron. When one of the artists she supports, Nick Leone, shows a portrait of her—quite naked and clearly aroused—at a gallery opening, she’s devastated by the scandal. What follows is much less interesting than one might expect. Part of the problem is Caroline herself: It’s not easy to feel much sympathy for a woman with enough power and money to destroy a man for sullying her reputation. And part of the problem is structural. James has chosen to have Caroline tell her story in the form of reminiscence. It’s inevitable that even the most tireless soliloquist will leave things out, but Caroline leaves out too much. She tells a great deal more than she shows. For instance, there are no scenes of Caroline’s education as a connoisseur; instead, there are lists of the painters and sculptors whose work she buys. The New York art world of the ’20s was a fascinating place, but you’d never know it from reading this novel. Of course, some of Caroline’s self-editing is strategic, particularly when it comes to her relationship with Nick. The author makes the question of Nick’s motivation the central mystery. Was it malice—as Caroline assumes—or something else altogether? Unfortunately, the reader has few clues from which to draw any solid conclusions. Instead, James slowly reveals that her protagonist is not just a spoiled, pretentious dilettante, but also a rather cold-hearted fraud. The true scandal here is not a racy painting, but Caroline’s monumental and destructive dishonesty.
As this story’s heroine evolves from being merely boring to fundamentally loathsome, so too does her tale.Pub Date: March 7, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-34312-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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