Lovely, deeply felt fiction, with a subterranean vein of wry humor that helps make bearable even its most pained moments.
Irish writer Boylan (11 Edward Street, 1992, etc.) draws on painful family memories of her own father's manic-depression for a Dublin-set story of love, aging, madness, and the price of marriage.
Dick and Lily Butler, married for nearly 50 years, are the sort of doting, sweet, slightly dotty couple for whom buying and eating broccoli constitutes an adventure. Their only child, Ruth, is a hard-nosed feminist architect who can't quite see the magic in her parents' life or in their house "draped about with good feelings." The good feelings, though, dissipate and then shatter irretrievably when Dick begins to show signs of a slowly growing madness. He imagines intruders, schemers after his money, his home, his wife. Finally he explodes into utterly shocking violence, and Lily and Ruth are forced to have him committed. The crisis brings a new presence into their lives, an affable gay psychiatrist named Tim Walcott. As the disease makes its slow progress, Dick's manias become increasingly threatening and draw the few remaining family friends into their vortex. Suddenly, as if exhausted by the process, the old man dies, leaving his wife and daughter to cope with literal and figurative ghosts. In a superbly realized irony, each finds her way to a quiet and comfortable peace with his memory. Boylan tells this story with such delicacy and sound good sense that it's exhilarating to read even in its darkest and most agonizing moments. She is a deft technician with an ear for the offbeat, compelling metaphor, and a real feeling for human emotions, both pleasant and not.
Lovely, deeply felt fiction, with a subterranean vein of wry humor that helps make bearable even its most pained moments.Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58243-096-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
The book reads like a cheesy episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
Love is challenging for any species—but things get more complicated when you’re a ghoul who wants to eat anyone who gets close to you.
In DeAngelis’ (Petty Magic, 2010, etc.) third novel, 16-year-old Maren is determined to track down her father after her mother, who clearly loves her but is scared for her own life, abandons her, leaving behind some money and the girl's birth certificate, which includes some important information: her father’s name. Maren started eating people when she was a little kid. She devoured the kind babysitter who showed her affection, and things only got worse from there. She ate a boy who befriended her at summer camp. She ate the son of her mother’s boss during a party. She ate other people. It isn’t until she sets out on the road to find her father that she finally meets one of her own kind. Sully is a talkative man, and there’s something a bit sinister about him, too. He weaves a rope out of hair from people he's eaten. Maren decides to find her dad by herself, and at a Wal-Mart in the middle of the country, she finally meets another cannibal closer to her own age. Lee is someone she quickly relates to. His first kill was his babysitter, too. But as she tells him: “I make friends…I just can’t keep them.” Lee joins Maren on her quest to find her father, and a good portion of the book is about their developing relationship. Even though there are entertaining moments, DeAngelis’ prose is run-of-the-mill and her observations, somewhat obvious.
The book reads like a cheesy episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-04650-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An overstuffed tale that can’t decide if it’s a mystery or a romance.
Moriarty’s second novel follows the Doughty clan as they fight to protect family secrets.
The Doughtys became famous more than 70 years ago when Connie and Rose Doughty found a baby on their island home, Scribbly Gum. The baby’s parents, Alice and Jack Munro, vanished, leaving few clues to their whereabouts. The circumstances around the abandonment created a national media sensation. Dubbed “The Baby Munro Mystery,” the case captivated Australians and turned sleepy Scribbly Gum Island into a tourist destination. Connie and Rose jumped at this chance to make money. They offered tours and concessions based on the Munro’s disappearance. Their schemes created a financial windfall for the Doughty family. As the business grew, Connie and Rose managed to keep the younger generations of Doughtys on a tight leash by controlling the purse strings. After setting up this bleak bit of history, Moriarty focuses on the island’s current residents. The Doughty grandchildren and great-grandchildren seem to have prospered in their pristine surroundings, but in reality they are a tortured bunch. The family’s troubles surface when the matriarch, Connie, dies. Infighting breaks out among the relatives, and the careful fabric that bound the family together for years starts to unravel. The comparatively sane and notably saucy Sophie Honeywell is thrown into this den of nutcases—Sophie had only met the dowager a handful of times, when she was dating one of the Scribbly Gum natives, but apparently Sophie made such an impression that Connie bequeathed to her her home. Eager to toss aside Sydney’s stale singles scene for the opportunity to live rent-free on the picturesque island, Sophie joins the fray. Moriarty (Three Wishes, 2004) presents far too many characters (five generations are accounted for), and none of them are likable. The old ladies are cantankerous and the younger folk are addle-brained. Sub-plots involve postpartum depression, gay relationships, mid-life crises and weight-control issues.
An overstuffed tale that can’t decide if it’s a mystery or a romance.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-089068-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
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