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MERMAIDS EXPLAINED

Name: MERMAIDS EXPLAINED
Author: Christopher Reid
ISBN: 0-15-100106-5

POEMS 1976-1996

by Christopher Reid & edited by Charles Simic ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2001

A welcome excursion away from realities of everyday life that, like all good vacations, makes the return to our ordinary...

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Reid’s first collection published in the US includes work selected from all five of his British volumes edited by friend and fellow poet Simic, who also contributed the introduction. The tone is set early on (“A Holiday from Strict Reality”) when the poet declares that “Everything that we see in this gilded paradise is ours to make use of.” This attitude borrows much from John Donne and other English metaphysical poets whom Reid is reputed to admire. No object or event is too insignificant, especially once animated by the spark of poetic imagination, and each is presented as a “sacrament of the mind.” One particularly delightful entry portrays a young girl’s discovery of echoes and her “squealing to make the brickwork tingle.” There is musicality, if not exactly music, in such descriptions, and the author’s work abounds in similar raptures that are both accessible and intense. Elsewhere he depicts a tavern brawl as though it were a mating ritual between members of some “grim, antiquatedly armored species.” In every instance, Reid elevates the commonplace, making it not only seem more than it is, but also providing the reader with the means whereby it can be viewed in this altered light. His work is more than a series of dull intellectual exercises, however. The poems are also imbued with humor, especially when he takes aim at pomposity or the crudeness of modern life.

A welcome excursion away from realities of everyday life that, like all good vacations, makes the return to our ordinary world less mundane.

Pub Date: April 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-15-100106-5

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LETTERS OF SEAMUS HEANEY
by Seamus Heaney ; edited by Christopher Reid

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.