A grim, convincing, remarkably assured first novel about the darker byways of the Civil War. Set largely in the isolated mountains and fertile valleys of western North Carolina, Price's story follows the struggles of the once wealthy Curtis family in 1863 to survive one more year of war. Madison Curtis, an influential planter before secession, is a man increasingly hard-pressed by circumstance. His three sons, Howell, Jack, and Andy, are all in the Confederate Army. His daughters are without husbands. The fertile land goes untilled. His considerable holdings of livestock have been depleted by raids from several violent local clans. And then a raiding party claiming to be Union soldiers, but actually a band of thieves, deserters, and psychopathic thugs, rides up to his door. Throughout, freelance writer Price, brings an astonishing verisimilitude to the narrative. The salty, exact language, tough-minded views, hard lives, and bloody deeds of these characters ring true throughout. Behind the lines in Price's South, the law is largely nonexistent. Bandits of every description prowl the backwoods, along with deserters, those attempting to avoid conscription (the draft was as unpopular in the South as in the North), and contending forces of Union and Confederate troops prone to shoot first and ask questions later. There are many small, confused skirmishes, ambushes, and atrocities. Price moves back and forth between the sufferings of the Curtis family and the experiences of their boys at the battle of Chickamauga, an inconclusive Confederate victory. One of the boys, watching the vast numbers of men charging forward, thinks ``How huge and without pity'' the thing ``about to consume him'' now appeared. Price excels in catching the plight of individuals caught up in this vast event. The prose is occasionally too ripely folkloric, the structure, shuttling back and forth between characters, sometimes confusing, and the ending needlessly abrupt. But few recent novels have caught with such conviction the true texture and profound emotions of that conflict.
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-89733-429-9
Page Count: 197
Publisher: Academy Chicago
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
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