From the author of Playing with Fire (1990) and Fugitive Blue (1992): another gloomy tale of upper-class guilt and betrayal, this featuring a psychoanalyst who longs to reunite with the son he lost more than 30 years ago. Solomon Grossman never felt so lucky as on his wedding night with wealthy Ruth Lenski, the cosseted only child of Manhattan's first Jewish district attorney. Inspired to propose by a sort of existential recklessness he feels as a Holocaust survivor, the fledgling psychoanalyst's in-laws reward him with an elegant brownstone that includes a private office for his practice. The marriage soon starts to crumble, though, as Ruthie insists on getting pregnant despite Solomon's pleas of poverty; later, her passion for baby Daniel precludes any affection for Solomon. The dutiful doctor retreats to his office, where trouble soon arrives in the form of Katrina Volk, a new patient and gifted photographer who reveals that her father was a powerful member of the Nazi regime. Katrina proceeds to lure Solomon into a night of S&M sex; and when Solomon ends their relationship, she goes public with the incident. Scandalized Ruthie runs home to Daddy with Daniel in her arms, and decades pass before Solomon, now 64, can bring himself to face his grown son and try to make amends. By now, of course, Daniel has his own problems: His wife and daughter have left him, and his mother has recently died. Still, he's excited by the appearance of a father long believed dead, and the two men are just getting to know each other when Solomon drops dead of a heart attack. The 30-page epilogue, in which Solomon's spirit ensures that Daniel will not lose his family as Solomon lost his, provides a disappointingly paranormal end to this otherwise compelling story, throwing the reader out of sympathy with the characters and rendering the entire tale less believable. A flawed novel, then—though, as always, Shapiro's gift for evoking the darker emotions is clear and strong.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-47263-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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