The same old story, written by someone who should know better.
Never has the worldview of Golf Digest columnist Jenkins (Slim and None, 2005, etc.) been pettier than in this cliché-ridden, boorish and brief exploration of the newly sexualized world of the LPGA tour.
Sports Magazine writer Jack Brannon, 47, hits every 1970s-era formula branch on his way down. Twice-divorced with a penchant for four-olive martinis, Brannon sleeps with the well-worn PR nymphs on the circuit and picks restaurants Sinatra frequented. Weary of a men’s game that focuses only on the legendary player he dubs “Black Jesus,” Jack turns his attentions to the “Lolitas”: the sexy and talented younger women gaining ground on the women’s circuit in tournaments like the Firm Chick Classic. He zeroes in on a rising star, an ingénue shooter with model looks named Ginger Clayton, the titular “Franchise Babe” whose numerous gifts promise big-ticket endorsement deals (of Ginger the narrator says: “…it was a good guess she could kick a hole in the ceiling of a motel room if she was on her back doing what it looked like she could do best”). After Ginger is nearly poisoned by a rival and subsequently brained on the links on her way to the toilet—and Jack makes a pitiful but successful pass at her hot-to-trot mother, Thurlene—he starts investigating who might have it out for the feisty wunderkind. Jenkins makes some salient, well-worn points about the commercialization of sports and the exploitation of young athletes. Unfortunately, they’re punctuated by sexist remarks, as well as juvenile taunts aimed indiscriminately at lesbians, Hollywood liberals, the French and others. The golf, meanwhile, is just as exciting as it is on television.
The same old story, written by someone who should know better.Pub Date: June 3, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-385-51910-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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