Another fairy tale for grown-ups fond of Victorian waif-to- well-being tales featuring the deserving poor and plain, the beautiful, rich, and wicked, and other lurking ogres. This time out, the ever popular Cookson (My Beloved Son; The Love Child, etc.) offers the saga of a wee lass headed for trouble—all beginning in an 1854 English mill village. Millie Forester, first seen here at seven when her poor mother is forced to streetwalk for food, finds a reluctant protector in Agnes Winkowski, aka ``Raggie Aggie,'' a Tugboat Annie type who peddles rags from the remains of the old family farmhouse, which also shelters Ben, 17, taken in when he was a small lad. Millie's Ma commits suicide, and a brothel owner is after the beautiful child, so it's off to a convent school—an education finished when Millie kicks a virulent nun in the shins. Then when Millie is 16, she's happily working as a nursemaid nearby—until at a servants' party, the wife of a mill owner directs some terrible sexual antics. So it's home again and a rich suitor—in spite of the objections of sturdy and saintly Ben, possessor of all the manly virtues if physically a bit short. Two monster men will then rustle the grass—a long-lost father and that old devil brothel procurer- -but there's that Cookson specialty on the way: the last-minute rescue. With dialogue ripe and rugged: a grand groaner for the faithful.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-86477-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1993
Flagg flies high, and her fans will enjoy the ride.
Flagg highlights a little-known group in U.S. history and generations of families in an appealing story about two women who gather their courage, spread their wings and learn, each in her own way, to fly (I Still Dream About You, 2010, etc.).
After marrying off all three of her daughters (one of them twice to the same man), Sookie Poole is looking forward to kicking back and spending time with her husband and her beloved birds. She’s worked hard throughout life to be a good mother to her four children and a perfect daughter to her octogenarian mother. Lenore Simmons Krackenberry’s a legend in Point Clear, Ala., and has always been narcissistic, active in all the “right” organizations, and extremely demanding. She’s also become increasingly bonkers, a disorder that seems to run in the Simmons family. Throughout much of her life, Sookie’s never felt as if she’s measured up to Lenore’s exacting standards, and she’s terrified she, too, might lose her marbles. Then, Sookie receives an envelope filled with old documents that turn her world and her beliefs about herself and her family topsy-turvy. Her emotional quest for answers leads Sookie down a winding yet humorous path, as she meets with a young psychiatrist at the local Waffle House and tracks down descendants of a Polish immigrant who opened a Phillips 66 filling station in Pulaski, Wis., in 1928. What she discovers about the remarkable Jurdabralinski siblings inspires her: Fritzi, the eldest daughter, developed a unique idea to keep her father’s business operating during difficult times, but her true passion involved loftier goals. During World War II, she used her exceptional skills to serve her country in an elite program, and two of her sisters followed suit. Finding inspiration in their professional and personal sacrifices, Sookie discovers her own courage to make certain decisions about her life and to accept and take pride in the person she is. This is a charming story written with wit and empathy. The author forms a comfortable bond with readers and offers just the right blend of history and fiction.
Flagg flies high, and her fans will enjoy the ride.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6594-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Irving's novels, which often begin in autobiographical commonplace, get transformed along the way: sometimes into fairy tale (The Hotel New Hampshire), sometimes into modern-day ironic fable (The World According to Garp). This one—set in New Hampshire in the 50's and 60's—is a little of both, but not enough of either: its tone is finally too self-righteous to be fully convincing as fiction. In 1953, Owen Meany—a physically tiny man with a big voice who believes he's God's instrument—kills his best friend's mother with a foul ball. His best friend, Johnny Wheelwright, is the book's narrator: from Toronto, where he has lived for some 20 odd years, he tells the story of Owen Meany, who has a voice that "comes from God," of his own "Father Hunt"—Wheelwright is the product of his mother's "little fling"—and of growing up in the Sixties, when some people believed in destiny, others in coincidence. Sweetly moralistic, Wheelwright, who became "a Christian because of Owen Meany," sometimes launches into tirades about Reagan and the Iran/contra fiasco, but mostly he tells Owen's story: Meany, who always writes and speaks in the uppercase, is the real mouthpiece here, though Wheelwright is his Nick Carraway. Meany, after hitting "that fated baseball," no longer believes in accidents: his parents, in the granite business, convince him that he's the product of a virgin birth (we learn late in the book). His sense of destiny serves him well: not only does he play the Christ child in a Christmas pageant and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, but his pontificating "Voice" becomes a great power at the prep school he attends with Johnny (there are some marvelous sendups of prep school), and he "sees" the circumstances and the date of his own death. After much inventive detail (as well as much slapstick and whimsy dealing with Meany's tiny size and strange voice) and the working-out of a three-way relationship involving Meany, Johnny, and his cousin Hester, Meany saws off Johnny's finger in order to keep him out of Vietnam, dies as he foresaw, and reveals to Johnny from beyond the grave that the local Congregationalist minister is his real father. Vintage Irving—though here Dickensian coincidence, an Irving staple, becomes the subject of the book rather than a technique. The result is a novel that seems sincere but turns too bombastic and insistent in its opinions about literature, religion, and politics.
Pub Date: March 30, 1989
ISBN: 0679642595
Page Count: -
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1989
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