by D. C. Moses ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2015
A delightful story filled with pleasant people in a lovely setting, though it could have been told in half as many pages.
A meandering family saga set in small-town New York, by former creative writing instructor Moses (Train from Thompsonville, 2006).
LA-born and -bred Paul Kipnis, an art history instructor, is lured to upstate New York’s Ely College by his father’s first cousin Viktor, whom Paul had met at his mother’s memorial service. Shortly thereafter, Paul’s dramatic sister, Rachel, summons him to their father’s LA home because their father, Mitchell, suffers what appears to be a heart ailment. Paul—accompanied by Viktor, an old friend of his father’s—visits Mitchell, and the three decide on an extended stay with Viktor and his adopted daughter, Corinna, in Thompsonville, New York. Mitchell moves in, and the arrangement works remarkably well. The only conflict occurs when Mitchell suspects—accurately—that Paul has developed an attraction to Corinna, who’s engaged to the scion of a wealthy New York City Jewish family for whom an immigrant goy from a small town is just not acceptable. Paul deals with his feelings by avoiding Corinna, whose engagement to Syd Steinberg drifts on interminably, despite their estrangement and infrequent visits. Syd abandons his graduate studies and, after his brother is killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, enters the world of New York finance, a move that spells the end of his relationship with Corinna. Unfortunately, the time line becomes muddled midway through the story, with the narrative jumping from one year to another (backward and forward) for no good reason. Likewise, a solid edit is needed to clear up some narrative inconsistencies. Nevertheless, with an adeptly drawn portrayal of Thompsonville, Moses offers likable characters in an enjoyable story despite the shortage of action and plot.
A delightful story filled with pleasant people in a lovely setting, though it could have been told in half as many pages.Pub Date: March 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5035-3471-1
Page Count: 398
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by D. C. Moses
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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