A quirky new work by the author of Your Name Here: ________ (1994), etc., focuses on the sexual power struggles of two long- married couples in terms best understood by their pet dogs. Morgan, an aging dancer in his mid-30s, has grown bored with his listless wife, Fanny, a would-be decorator who waits tables part-time. Scott, the middle-aged owner of a catering service and Fanny's boss, has long felt alienated by his own marriage to sexless Suzanne, who only wants to maintain the status quo. What these two couples have in common is a preoccupation with their dogs, a beautiful husky and a friendly springer spaniel—both of which have begun responding to family tensions with neurotic behavior of their own. The dogs provide a common point of interest for Fanny and Scott; the more he talks with Fanny about doggie problems, the more arid and unbearable the rest of his life appears. The two begin meeting in the park, ostensibly to exercise their dogs. Morgan, obsessed with his career problems and with a lesbian dancer named Renee, doesn't care about their meetings, and Suzanne, offstage baking cookies, is quite unaware of them. Inevitably, Fanny falls into an affair with Scott, probably because it's her nature to submit: She yields to Scott, to Renee, whose determination to succeed as a dancer leaves no one in her path unharmed, and even to a female acquaintance determined to breed Fanny's husky with a wolf and create her own new champion breed. When Scott and Fanny make the break with their spouses, each member of the drama responds in doglike fashion—that is, according to his or her status in the pack. In the end, it's all too clear who's alpha and who's not in this dog-eat-dog world—but as long as a person remembers where he stands, happiness is possible. Hardly romantic, but often very amusing. Mazza is one cold- blooded comedian.
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-56889-055-1
Page Count: 265
Publisher: Coffee House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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