In a disturbing account of three generations, Shearer's debut uses a series of first-person narratives to trace the disintegration of a southern family's happiness. Beginning with the adventurous 16-year-old Harrison Durrance, who shines shoes to stave off the Depression in rural Georgia, the story moves gradually to the present, changing narrators with each chapter, though always referring in one way or another to the life of Harrison. He begins as an engaging all-American boy with red hair and courage, dreaming of exploration and the sky, but as time and narrators change, the assessment of his character shifts, moving from admiration to disdain to pity. From a West Point buddy describing the brash and charismatic young Harrison just before WW II, to his wife relating his brutal punches and drunken rages in their 1950s home, to the laments of his mistress, his sister-in- law's heartbreak for her Vietnam-bound son, to his grown children's account of the aging and broken man, a multilayered portrait of Harrison emerges. The ruin of the man, and the effect it has on each person in his life, begins with his inability to cope after the war. Though still in the Air Force, he's no longer able to fly, taking out his frustration on his wife and three children, who in their later life feel the legacy of his treatment. Daughter Allie, a middle-aged virgin, longs to break the spell of the reclusion that has its source in her father's abuse, and Harrison's son Field, a '60s radical, becomes a disillusioned suburbanite with a troubled marriage. The success of Shearer's novel, uncompromising in its unflinching look at ruined dreams, is made possible by its subtle ability to hold together the disparate pieces, which are akin to a series of self-contained short stories. A confident and daring debut, using the microcosm of this family's fall as an emblem of the American dream gone bad. (Regional author tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 15, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-43982-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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