A light and breezy encapsulation of a small community.
Callen (Words in Rows, 2016) gives a tour of a seemingly bucolic planned neighborhood in a series of vignettes.
Readers are introduced, house by house, to the inhabitants of Heavenly Heights, a small development on a “slight elevation relative to the rest of the town,” which the omniscient narrator calls “an ideal stage for the comedy and drama of human life to unfold.” First off, there’s Reuben and Wendy Moreland, who amiably live on separate floors of their house to make their differing personalities work together. Wendy gave up a daughter to adoption before their marriage, and hopes to one day track her down. Across the street are the somewhat odd Tom and Georgiana Nickerson; Georgiana is known for her compulsion to quantify things, such as the number of squirrels in town, and Tom is rarely seen at all. Down the street are empty nesters Sonia and Mark Bittlemeier; Mark continues to work, but Sonia dreams of putting together a writing project to corral all the quotes and allusions running through her head. Margaret Sneed, a psychoanalyst, lives alone at the end of the block, and in another house, Susan Cochran raises dachshunds. When Susan suffers a stroke, it unexpectedly brings together even the most reticent members of the neighborhood. In straightforward prose, Callen ably balances comedy and drama, never allowing the narrative to tip too far in one direction, and shows a light touch in her transitions. As a result, the characters’ stories all weave together nicely, and the author is able to work some surprises into what initially seems to be a simple narrative. The neighborhood feels lived-in and true to life, and Callen pays close attention to all of its—and its inhabitants’—quirks. Those readers seeking a grand culmination to all these plot threads, however, may come away dissatisfied; the stakes remain low throughout, and the overall effect of the collection is pleasant but not weighty.
A light and breezy encapsulation of a small community.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9884716-2-7
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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