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
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
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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