A loopy and likable third outing (after War Memorials, 2000, etc.), but insubstantial and unconvincing.
A phlegmatic Alabaman innocent encounters illogic, mendacity, and lethal ambition.
Taylor Wakefield’s troubles (related in his meandering nonsequential narrative) begin in 1963 when, aged 11, he inadvertently witnesses the murder of a black saloonkeeper by his sociopathic adult cousin Billy Hatcher (“the most dangerous limb on the family tree”), and is frightened into silence. Years pass (looping around one another, in Taylor’s remembering), and Our Hero reaches the finals of the National Spelling Bee, losing to his cute female opponent, turns failure to brief fame on a tacky phone-in quiz show, survives his parents’ marital breakup, and drifts. The plot gathers shape when Taylor is hired as a (totally unqualified) weatherman by Montgomery-based radio-TV network Alacast (“a bottom-feeding news operation known for its gross inaccuracies and its growing number of pending lawsuits”). McCown’s summary of Taylor’s embattled adjustment to a bewildering multiplicity of tasks at understaffed Alacast is sitcom stuff. But things darken and grow more interesting when Taylor uses his “forum” as meteorologist-commentator to utter cryptic warnings about the political rise of aforementioned Cousin Billy, who’s been born again, reconstructed himself as an assistant attorney general, and is now reopening the case of the 15-year-old murder he himself committed. The resulting battle of wits steamrolls when Taylor reconnects with former Spelling Bee foe Alissa Powell, now a novice nun burdened by anger-management issues—and climaxes in a problem-solving confrontation with endlessly resourceful and duplicitous Cousin Billy. The Weatherman lives and dies by Taylor’s agreeably wry voice. There’s a little of Walker Percy’s self-deprecating Binx Bolling (of The Moviegoer) in him—though not enough to compensate for this story’s numerous improbabilities.
A loopy and likable third outing (after War Memorials, 2000, etc.), but insubstantial and unconvincing.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-55597-405-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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