An appealing empathy with the fates of embattled “little people” distinguishes this fine collection of twelve stories (from a forty-year oeuvre of nearly two hundred) by a popular Taiwanese author only now appearing in English translation. Cheng’s characters are most often small-town souls burdened if not traumatized by their country’s long experience of Japanese occupation (1895-1945) and by its subsequent transformation from an agrarian to an urban culture. The narrator of “The Last of the Gentlemen” offers a valediction to a dead friend that also becomes a lament for the society’s drift toward an impersonal industrialization; “Betel Nut Town” subjects an inchoate love affair to the contrast between city and village; and the title story depicts a guilty survivor of WWII (when he served with Japan’s colonial police force) now “atoning” for this treason by carving deformed (i.e., “three-legged”) wooden horses. Equally affecting are several pieces that examine troubled family relations, including quietly powerful characterizations of a man dominated by his wife’s unpleasant family (“The Mosquito”), a young woman in conflict with her demanding mother-in-law (“Autumn Night”), a mother and son estranged by their separate experiences of deprivation and misery (“Thunder God’s Gonna Getcha”), and the wary partners in a marriage that only gradually becomes trusting (“Secrets”). Two stories are especially impressive: “The River Suite,” about a young ferryman who’s inspired by the spirit of his late grandfather to an act of courage and to pursue, perhaps belatedly, his heart’s desire; and “Spring Rain,” about an orphan who endures a childless marriage and the death of his wife before finding in total selflessness the fulfillment previously denied him. It’s a typically understated story, capped by a beautiful Chekhovian conclusion. Chekhov, in fact, would have understood the compassionate sensibility animating these gently harrowing, unpretentious, absorbing tales. More of Cheng’s fiction would be welcome.
Pub Date: Jan. 7, 1999
ISBN: 0-231-11386-2
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1998
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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