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No Turning Back: Stories

A diverse collections of stories about dealing with the past.

The past is a lingering, powerful specter for the characters in Dan Burns' (Recalled to Life, 2013, etc.) motley collection of short stories.

A former mayor tries to outrun a scandal [4], a spy reunites with a childhood friend [82], and an abuse victim struggles to outrun bad memories and the consequences of his own transgressions [100]: these are the kinds of characters who permeate No Turning Back, where the present is shaped by the past and the past is all but inescapable. The stories range from action film-like scenes between a former president and an Iranian leader [111] to a memorable fantasy in which author Ray Bradbury arrives for a surprise birthday dinner [183]. Burns' characters are haunted—by death and loss [37], past scandals [4], and often by their own mistakes [101]. The characters' pasts are well-developed for such short stories, but they have an unfortunate tendency to get weighed down in explaining their own backstories instead of depicting the action of the present. The result is that readers are sometimes left wading through tedious descriptions of the past, but there's no doubt that these long interpolations manage to emphasize the book's message: our pasts shape our present states in complex ways, and unless we can let go, they shape our futures, too. Each story is followed by a brief essay explaining the author's writing process and his thoughts about the story. The author also includes an eight-page introduction, meaning that these stories arrive wrapped in a hefty padding of context and explanation. More intellectual readers will enjoy this, while others may prefer to skip ahead to the stories, which have a variety of intriguing plots that will entice readers' interest even when the pace of the stories occasionally lags.

A diverse collections of stories about dealing with the past.

Pub Date: April 29, 2014

ISBN: 978-0991169405

Page Count: 280

Publisher: Chicago Arts Press

Review Posted Online: July 27, 2014

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MAGIC HOUR

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

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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