A mytho-comic first novel that self-consciously imitates Latin American magical realism. Which also explains the odd diction: This clever, mostly delightful American fiction reads as if it were translated from another language. But that's in keeping with the narrative voice, which belongs to Alicia Barzini, an Italian from Subiaco who spends most of her life tending her parents while her twin brother, Carlo, pursues his fortune in America. After her parents die, and Alicia develops into a crack surgical nurse, she monitors her brother's life abroad with her mystic ability to ``tune in'' visions of him, witnessing from afar his material success in Boston's North End; his sexual adventures with the liberated Jassy; and that couple's communal life with Jassy's best friend, Virginia, and her family. Alicia's first trip to America ends poorly; she's shocked by the sexual mores and senses her own much-cherished purity under attack. Back in Italy, she lives as a recluse, embarrassed by her big nose and ungainly demeanor, but fiercely proud of her maidenhead. At one point, her virginity even takes on life, imploring her to return to her brother's aid in Boston, where things have taken a turn for the worse. One of Carlo's many prosperous businesses, mainly run by the now-missing Virginia, involves smuggling stolen religious art back to Italy, an activity suspended in Virginia's absence. The ``Benevolents,'' a secret society fanatically dedicated to the Virgin and her representation in artworks, conspire with the Vatican and kidnap Carlo's loved ones until he resumes the shipments abroad. When Jassy is inadvertently killed, Alicia also realizes the larger costs of her otherwise honorable virginity. Moore neatly dissects the core myths of Italian peasant Catholic culture, which she neither romanticizes nor condemns out of hand. Her serious willingness to entertain such arcane notions allows her to achieve the high comic effects of this clever debut.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13203-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
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
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
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