Wonderful characters elbow each other for room on a crowded stage. It’s a bit like a sunnier Bruce Wagner, but newcomer...
A gifted public relations practitioner’s black arts are fouled by his own pesky humanity.
Scott Singer has sailed willingly into the perfect p.r. storm. Fresh from a qualified triumph involving the use of naked but sincere feminists to rescue the image of a lavish but languishing resort, the lanky, loveless 35-year-old has accepted a truly daunting challenge. Gifted, unfairly handsome, philandering rap artist Hunta, né Jeremy Sharpe, would be on top of the recording scene were it not for the recent school shooting for which the musical and dramatic theme was Hunta's hit Bitch Fiend. It’s not just that the cultural police are waiting to throw him in chains. Lisa Glassman, the uncredited co-author of one of his best recordings, is about to charge him with rape. For all his gangsta posing (he was present at Tupac’s shooting), Hunta is a pretty straight guy trying to live up to his father's tough standards without losing his badass credentials. But neither the press nor the public will remember his softer side when the rape charge comes out. Working with p.r. legend and African-American specialist Maxina Howard, Scott proposes deployment of a deflatable rape charge from another quarter to preempt Lisa’s accusation. But Harmony Prince, the woman he picks to cry wolf, presents her own set of problems. Her wretched ghetto past has left her so emotionally vulnerable that Scott’s may finish her off. Worse, as he is falling a little bit in love with the brilliant, deaf mother of his 13-yer-old assistant, Scott is also falling a little bit in love with Harmony. The brilliant but doomed plan starts to collapse on Larry King Live when Hunta’s long-suffering wife Simba phones in just as Harmony is telling all.
Wonderful characters elbow each other for room on a crowded stage. It’s a bit like a sunnier Bruce Wagner, but newcomer Price is his own man.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2004
ISBN: 1-4000-6234-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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