bookshelf

MINUS TIME

Name: MINUS TIME
Author: Catherine Bush
ISBN: 1-56282-881-9

by Catherine Bush ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1993

None

bookshelf

Patchy yet captivating first novel about familial fractures—with an unusual conceit. The conceit is that heroine Helen Urie, 20, is separated from her mother not only by emotional distance but by an unprecedented physical gap—because Canadian astronaut Barbara Urie is orbiting the Earth as half of a male-female team aiming to set a record for in-space habitation. The story opens with Helen and her brother, Paul, watching from a deliberate distance as Barbara rockets into orbit—"and in that instant, everything...changed,'' including the validity of perception: That night, the two gaze in disbelief as a TV replay shows their doubles at the launch's viewing stand—"a backup family'' supplied by a media-minded NASA for the no-show siblings who chose to watch from afar. Also backed-up is their dad, David, whom they haven't seen since he lit out years before to provide earthquake relief when the "Big One'' hit L.A. (one of several ecodisasters that backdrop the plot). Author Bush pushes the sense of dislocation by alternating first- and third-person narration as Helen returns to hometown Toronto and takes an anonymous job waitressing. She also joins an animal-rights group, which leads to her unmasking when she's arrested for civil disobedience. But that act of defiance begins a transformative dialogue between Helen and Barbara (via telephone and closed- circuit TV), and—after Barbara is forced to make a fateful decision about staying in orbit—the entire family has a chance to start anew....A slightly surreal collage of often remarkable images and sensitively drawn characters that doesn't quite cohere—but that Bush is a talent to watch is without doubt.

None None

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1993

ISBN: 1-56282-881-9

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Hyperion

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

bookshelf

Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

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

THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

bookshelf

Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.