by David Baldacci ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 24, 2000
Well-meant but not very well-written family saga.
A best-selling thriller author turns to down-home melodrama—with mixed results at best.
Louisa May Cardinal (Lou) is only 12 when she and her brother Oz survive a car crash that kills their beloved father and leaves their mother Amanda mute and partially paralyzed. Kindly Great-grandmother Louisa insists that all three come back to the Appalachian homestead that has sheltered so many generations of their poor but honest clan—and they do, having nowhere else to go. The children, who grew up in New York, are bewildered by the strangeness of it all, while a family friend and lawyer, Cotton Longfellow, helps out whenever he can. He patiently reads aloud to the barely responsive Amanda and explains country customs to Lou and Oz. But soon the venerable Louisa suffers a devastating stroke—just as a local schemer comes up with a plot to sell her land to the powerful coal company that has ravaged the beauty of the mountains and left its supposed beneficiaries with nothing but black lung disease, crippling debt, and the certainty of early death. The saintly Cotton battles in court on Louisa’s behalf, but the jury finds for the coal company since the stricken matriarch can’t speak in order to tell her side of the story. All seems lost with Louisa’s death, but—with a snap of the fingers—the silent Amanda springs back into full consciousness and the villains are foiled. Political thrillers may be his strength, but Baldacci (Saving Faith, 1999, etc.) here is somewhere between middling and graceless. Drawing on his own rural Virginia heritage, he attempts various styles—backwoods dialect, homespun philosophizing, small-town courtroom theatrics—but his tin ear for dialogue and cloudy eye for metaphor stand in the way of success.
Well-meant but not very well-written family saga.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2000
ISBN: 0-446-52716-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
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by Susan Crandall ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 2, 2013
Young Starla is an endearing character whose spirited observations propel this nicely crafted story.
Crandall (Sleep No More, 2010, etc.) delivers big with a coming-of-age story set in Mississippi in 1963 and narrated by a precocious 9-year-old.
Due in part to tradition, intimidation and Jim Crow laws, segregation is very much ingrained into the Southern lifestyle in 1963. Few white children question these rules, least of all Starla Caudelle, a spunky young girl who lives with her stern, unbending grandmother in Cayuga Springs, Miss., and spends an inordinate amount of time on restriction for her impulsive actions and sassy mouth. Starla’s dad works on an oil rig in the Gulf; her mother abandoned the family to seek fame and fortune in Nashville when Starla was 3. In her youthful innocence, Starla’s convinced that her mother’s now a big singing star, and she dreams of living with her again one day, a day that seems to be coming more quickly than Starla’s anticipated. Convinced that her latest infraction is about to land her in reform school, Starla decides she has no recourse but to run away from home and head to Nashville to find her mom. Ill prepared for the long, hot walk and with little concept of time and distance, Starla becomes weak and dehydrated as she trudges along the hot, dusty road. She gladly accepts water and a ride from Eula, a black woman driving an old truck, and finds, to her surprise, that she’s not Eula’s only passenger. Inside a basket is a young white baby, an infant supposedly abandoned outside a church, whom Eula calls James. Although Eula doesn’t intend to drive all the way to Nashville, when she shows up at her home with the two white children, a confrontation with her husband forces her into becoming a part of Starla’s journey, and it’s this journey that creates strong bonds between the two: They help each other face fears as they each become stronger individuals. Starla learns firsthand about the abuse and scare tactics used to intimidate blacks and the skewed assumption of many whites that blacks are inferior beings. Assisted by a black schoolteacher who shows Eula and Starla unconditional acceptance and kindness, both ultimately learn that love and kinship transcend blood ties and skin color.
Young Starla is an endearing character whose spirited observations propel this nicely crafted story.Pub Date: July 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-0772-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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by Lisa Wingate ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 6, 2017
Wingate sheds light on a shameful true story of child exploitation but is less successful in engaging readers in her...
Avery Stafford, a lawyer, descendant of two prominent Southern families and daughter of a distinguished senator, discovers a family secret that alters her perspective on heritage.
Wingate (Sisters, 2016, etc.) shifts the story in her latest novel between present and past as Avery uncovers evidence that her Grandma Judy was a victim of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and is related to a woman Avery and her father meet when he visits a nursing home. Although Avery is living at home to help her parents through her father’s cancer treatment, she is also being groomed for her own political career. Readers learn that investigating her family’s past is not part of Avery's scripted existence, but Wingate's attempts to make her seem torn about this are never fully developed, and descriptions of her chemistry with a man she meets as she's searching are also unconvincing. Sections describing the real-life orphanage director Georgia Tann, who stole poor children, mistreated them, and placed them for adoption with wealthy clients—including Joan Crawford and June Allyson—are more vivid, as are passages about Grandma Judy and her siblings. Wingate’s fans and readers who enjoy family dramas will find enough to entertain them, and book clubs may enjoy dissecting the relationship and historical issues in the book.
Wingate sheds light on a shameful true story of child exploitation but is less successful in engaging readers in her fictional characters' lives.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-425-28468-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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by Lisa Wingate
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