Though it’s not a fully successful novel, this fascinating melodrama of sexual and racial confusion, conflict, and injustice is both a bold departure from and a logical outgrowth of the brooding studies of gay angst (Martin and John, 1993; The Law of Enclosures, 1996) that established Peck as one of our most interesting younger writers. Thematic and other echoes of the earlier books resound throughout this big novel, which relates through a large chorus of townspeople’s voices the explosive occurrences after writer Colin Nieman and his lover “Justin Time” flee AIDS-polluted New York for a rural Kansas town that’s effectively divided into white and black subsections, Galatea and Galatia. The pair’s interrelations with numerous bruised and guilty souls—a black hustler named Divine, a woman “archivist” obsessed with unearthing her town’s secrets, and a wealthy matriarch who may have ordered a murder are prominent among them—reveal a dauntingly intricate heritage of violence: the lynching of a black teenager falsely accused of “touching” a young girl, the real crime that underlay the town’s mania for “justice.” The ambiguities in both of the novels Colin has written (and will write) and of the very one we’re reading are—a bit affectedly—linked to that mystery. More persuasively, the infectious momentum here powerfully dramatizes what its characters call “humanity’s need to reveal itself through written confession” and the truth that “most people have only one secret, and that secret is whom they truly love.” Peck incorporates his story’s grand mal particulars into a surprisingly tightly plotted narrative, weakened but not quite sunk by its penchant for excess (the resolution of that lynching victim’s story is both overwrought and opaque). And to its benefit and detriment (in almost equal measure), this very literary fiction is derivative, to varying degrees, of James Purdy, James Leo Herlihy, Erskine Caldwell, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, an
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-374-22271-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998
An overstuffed tale that can’t decide if it’s a mystery or a romance.
Moriarty’s second novel follows the Doughty clan as they fight to protect family secrets.
The Doughtys became famous more than 70 years ago when Connie and Rose Doughty found a baby on their island home, Scribbly Gum. The baby’s parents, Alice and Jack Munro, vanished, leaving few clues to their whereabouts. The circumstances around the abandonment created a national media sensation. Dubbed “The Baby Munro Mystery,” the case captivated Australians and turned sleepy Scribbly Gum Island into a tourist destination. Connie and Rose jumped at this chance to make money. They offered tours and concessions based on the Munro’s disappearance. Their schemes created a financial windfall for the Doughty family. As the business grew, Connie and Rose managed to keep the younger generations of Doughtys on a tight leash by controlling the purse strings. After setting up this bleak bit of history, Moriarty focuses on the island’s current residents. The Doughty grandchildren and great-grandchildren seem to have prospered in their pristine surroundings, but in reality they are a tortured bunch. The family’s troubles surface when the matriarch, Connie, dies. Infighting breaks out among the relatives, and the careful fabric that bound the family together for years starts to unravel. The comparatively sane and notably saucy Sophie Honeywell is thrown into this den of nutcases—Sophie had only met the dowager a handful of times, when she was dating one of the Scribbly Gum natives, but apparently Sophie made such an impression that Connie bequeathed to her her home. Eager to toss aside Sydney’s stale singles scene for the opportunity to live rent-free on the picturesque island, Sophie joins the fray. Moriarty (Three Wishes, 2004) presents far too many characters (five generations are accounted for), and none of them are likable. The old ladies are cantankerous and the younger folk are addle-brained. Sub-plots involve postpartum depression, gay relationships, mid-life crises and weight-control issues.
An overstuffed tale that can’t decide if it’s a mystery or a romance.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-089068-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
This vibrant, thoughtful book from Katz (Over the Moon, 1997) continues her tribute to her adopted daughter, Lena, born in Guatemala. Lena is “seven. I am the color of cinnamon. Mom says she could eat me up”; she learns during a painting lesson that to get the color brown, she will have to “mix red, yellow, black, and white paints.” They go for a walk to observe the many shades of brown: they see Sonia, who is the color of creamy peanut butter; Isabella, who is chocolate brown; Lucy, both peachy and tan; Jo-Jin, the color of honey; Kyle, “like leaves in fall”; Mr. Pellegrino, the color of pizza crust, golden brown. Lena realizes that every shade is beautiful, then mixes her paints accordingly for portraits of her friends—“The colors of us!” Bold illustrations celebrate diversity with a child’s open-hearted sensibility and a mother’s love. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5864-8
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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