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SKIN

Name: SKIN
Author: Catherine Hiller
ISBN: 0-7867-0435-7

SENSUAL TALES

by Catherine Hiller ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 12, 1997

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The thirteen ``sensual tales'' (some previously published) in this first collection by novelist Hiller (17 Morton Street, 1990, etc.), extolling the virtues of seduction and fantasy, in fact range from the insightfully erotic to straight porn. The title story is among the best, a short, sharp dissection of one family's attitude toward the (supposedly erotic) mole above Muriel's lip; equally engaging is ``Yearning at Yaddo,'' in which a mother of two goes to the Yaddo artists' colony ``to start a new novel and have an affair'' but finds herself isolated by her status as a mom and forced more deeply into her writing. The notion of yearning also surfaces powerfully in ``My Lover's Family'' as a mistress attempts to explain her complex feelings about her role. Unfortunately, though, the more conventional side of these tales is more prevalent, exemplified most damningly in ``Final Assignment'' and ``The February Fantasy,'' both of which are driven by the hackneyed dynamic of an affair between student and writing professor, and more quaintly in ``Bad Sex,'' in which a woman's method of ending an affair, because her lover wants to marry someone else, is to insist he do things she doesn't like—things that only drive him mad with desire for her. Somewhere in between is ``Piazza del Popolo,'' in which a young mother returns with her family to the scene of a Roman orgy she'd had a decade before, and discovers that she is at last able to deal with her remembered feelings of shame and arousal. As tends to be the case with erotica that lacks writing with a life of its own, the tales here are flattened by repetition in technique and content, relieved occasionally by the odd fine moment showing that Hiller is capable of much more than is shown here.

Pub Date: May 12, 1997

ISBN: 0-7867-0435-7

Page Count: 176

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
JUST SAY YES
by Catherine Hiller

- BOOK REVIEW
CALIFORNIA TIME
by Catherine Hiller

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).