Lust proves the catalyst that reconnects a hotshot insurance salesman with his buried Indian past, and with a spirit guide he'd prefer to avoid: a fast-paced and funny, if somewhat fragmented, follow-up to Moore's Practical Demonkeeping (1992). Sam Hunter, formerly Samson Hunts Alone of the Crow reservation in Montana, left home in a hurry as a teenager after throwing a cop over a dam, established himself successfully in L.A. as an unflappably congenial insurance hustler, only to have his past catch up with him 20 years later when he stops to gawk at a gorgeous, leggy blond on his way to an appointment. A mysterious Indian appears in his life at the same time, and within 24 hours Sam has lost his job, his condo, and his equilibrium. The blond, Calliope, leaves him hopelessly in love after a first date, while the Indian, by changing into a coyote, a raven, a mosquito, and other shapes, is revealed as none other than the Trickster, Old Man Coyote of Indian legend. Having appeared to Sam as a boy on his first vision-quest, Coyote now wants to put the grown man's successful but empty life in order, but when Sam begs for a return to normalcy, Coyote complies—and Calliope vanishes. The two follow her to Las Vegas, where Coyote gambles away all of Sam's money and his car, but they team up with her in traveling to South Dakota to rescue her son, abducted by her crazed biker ex-husband. In a getaway with the boy, Calliope is killed—but when Coyote later makes the ultimate sacrifice in Crow Country, she magically revives for the sappiest of happy endings. Lively and loopy, and certainly imaginative, but the conventional underpinnings offer little support for frequent flights of fantasy, yielding an entertaining but hollow romantic adventure. (First printing of 50,000)
Pub Date: March 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-88188-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
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.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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