The sordid history of Florida’s turpentine camps is riveting; the characters less so.
A Muscogee woman and a World War I veteran try to save the soldier’s sister and brother-in-law, held against their will in a brutal turpentine camp in 1920s Florida.
Scott Hampton comes from New York to northern Florida to search for his missing sister, Sarah, and her husband, Franklin, who’d gone south for work only to be imprisoned in a turpentine camp run by the ruthless Captain Riggs. Also held there is Martha LongFoot, the daughter of a Muscogee woman and a slave, who grew up as Riggs’ sexual captive and now serves as the camp’s resident “Medicine Woman.” (Martha narrates half the story, describing life inside the camp, while the rest is told in the third person). Wimberley (Devil’s Slew, 2011, etc) does a nice job keeping up the suspense as Hampton searches for his relations, and those unfamiliar with the history of camps like these will find no shortage of fascinating—and horrifying—context: from how debtors (and others) were essentially enslaved in them to the particulars of how workers extract resin from pines for turpentine. But while readers may be new to the history here, they’ll likely find the characters more familiar, from the brave (and bland) leading man to a bevy of recognizable villains (an oily attorney, an underhanded judge, the sadistic Riggs, etc.). Wimberley’s most memorable creation is Martha, who endures a monstrous childhood—and is severely disfigured, for reasons readers will later learn—to become one of the camp’s savviest operators. But in highlighting Martha’s resilience, Wimberley comes a bit too close to buying into the "magical minority" trope, in which a person of color has almost otherworldly wisdom or skills. Indeed, she can “lift a man onto a mule,” shoot a squirrel square in the neck (so as not “to mess up the meat”), and cure various ailments, all while recounting her life in vivid prose. Ultimately, a more nuanced characterization would have better served the story—and the reader.
The sordid history of Florida’s turpentine camps is riveting; the characters less so.Pub Date: June 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-91-7637-036-0
Page Count: 312
Publisher: l'Aleph/Wisehouse
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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