Gushy treatment of a very serious and real problem. But given Steel’s gadzillion readers, it may well end up doing good...
A beautiful TV news anchor at the mercy of her rich, cruel, powerful husband discovers that wife-beating isn’t just for trailer trash.
In fact, as the author is careful to point out, batterers come from all walks of life and always have, and psychological abuse can be nearly as destructive as the physical kind. There’s lots of useful information of this sort interwoven throughout this wildly implausible tale. Maddy Hunter thinks of herself as her husband’s creation—after all, the ruggedly handsome media mogul and presidential advisor brought her from a go-nowhere receptionist job to national news stardom. Yet Maddy’s millions of fans don’t know that Jack Hunter is emotionally and sexually abusive, and controlling as all get out. He insisted she have her tubes tied, and sometimes he won’t even let her go out to shop! Defiantly, Maddy becomes involved with the First Lady’s Commission on Violence Against Women and gets into therapy. Meanwhile, much didactic but reasonably accurate information on many aspects of battering is presented in the form of long-winded dialogue from all parties. As Jack gets rougher and tougher—and more and more controlling—Maddy comes to her senses, thinks about leaving him, meets a significant stranger from her past. And, oh, yeah, finds the love of a good man. Then tragedy strikes: she’s buried under tons of rubble when the mall is blown up by crazed fanatics. So ironic, too, because the classy Maddy just hates malls and went in only to buy wrapping paper. Will the heroic rescuers reach her in time? Will she be able to adopt the tiny baby whose unwed teenage mother lay dying conveniently nearby? Fill in the blanks: this is Steel’s 50th novel (The House on Hope Street, p. 745).
Gushy treatment of a very serious and real problem. But given Steel’s gadzillion readers, it may well end up doing good somewhere.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-31687-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.
The husband-and-wife team who have given us refreshing English versions of Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Chekhov now present their lucid translation of Tolstoy's panoramic tale of adultery and society: a masterwork that may well be the greatest realistic novel ever written. It's a beautifully structured fiction, which contrasts the aristocratic world of two prominent families with the ideal utopian one dreamed by earnest Konstantin Levin (a virtual self-portrait). The characters of the enchanting Anna (a descendant of Flaubert's Emma Bovary and Fontane's Effi Briest, and forerunner of countless later literary heroines), the lover (Vronsky) who proves worthy of her indiscretion, her bloodless husband Karenin and ingenuous epicurean brother Stiva, among many others, are quite literally unforgettable. Perhaps the greatest virtue of this splendid translation is the skill with which it distinguishes the accents of Anna's romantic egoism from the spare narrative clarity with which a vast spectrum of Russian life is vividly portrayed.
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-89478-8
Page Count: 864
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
PERSPECTIVES
Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he’s found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake’s ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad’s house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Annie spruces up Nick’s home on Mystic Lake and sends “Izzy-bear” back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Still, when Annie learns that she’s pregnant not with Nick’s but with Blake’s child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn’t even stick around to support his wife. At this point, it’s perfectly clear to Annie—and the reader—that she’s justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. Hannah’s characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections)
Pub Date: March 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-609-60249-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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