Time passes slowly but agreeably in expat Italian first- novelist Odone's lovingly evoked village in the Italian Piedmont, where memories are long and traditions as much a part of life as the changing of the seasons. Not much seems to change in San Lorenzo, a village set in the foothills of the Alps. The gypsies still arrive each summer for the local festa; each night, as the air cools, the housewives promenade round the square; and the seemingly wealthy Ferrati family still owns the fields and vineyards stretching beyond the large house standing at the edge of the village. But change is as inevitable as the end of summer, and the inhabitants of San Lorenzo are no more immune than others less picturesquely situated. These quiet but substantial changes and their consequences are the substance of Odone's story. Alma and brother Francesco are the last of the Ferratis, but when their father, a forceful and colorful character, dies, they've got to sell the land because he invested unwisely- -which doesn't displease ambitious matriarch and burgeoning landowner Franca, who buys the Ferrati property. Alma, an artist who also lives in Turin, and Francesco, an unhappily married publisher in London, are comforted that they at least still have the house they love. As the year passes, the villagers decide to build a shrine to capitalize on the visions of the Virgin Mary pious young Santarella claims to have seen, but neither the Bishop nor Santarella will cooperate; Alma has an affair with a friend of Francesco's who still lives in San Lorenzo; Francesco, torn between London and Italy, finds his marriage improving. When the siblings learn of more debts their father incurred, they realize they can no longer keep even the house, and accept with grace that the San Lorenzo part of their lives is ended. A beautifully crafted debut novel with a perfect Merchant- Ivory quality, putting place and atmosphere, rather than overheated action, center-stage.
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1996
ISBN: 0-297-81661-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
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
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
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