An African-American tale crafted with wisdom and poetry.
A literary novel offers a coming-of-age story in the Jim Crow South.
Ruth-Ann Weathering is something special among the African-American community of Mandarin, Florida. When she completes the eighth grade at the young age of 13, she is already smarter than Mr. Turner, her teacher. Mr. Turner—considered something of a prodigy himself in that rural community—begs Ruth-Ann’s parents to send her to high school: “Ruth-Ann is the best of what the future can be. If we give her the chance—we can help build—for our people—a world that your folks and my folks—that you and I—never dreamed of.” The narrative, which follows Ruth-Ann from the ages of 13 to 20 during the early 20th century, shows that she is indeed a uniquely clever and observant girl even if she doesn’t quite end up on the track that Mr. Turner hopes for her. She falls in love with Stephen, a scion of the family called the “Black Wenders,” who own hundreds of acres along the St. John’s River. Ruth-Ann and Stephen both have ambitions that will take them further than their parents, but the age-old tragedies of poverty, misfortune, and malicious racism on the parts of their white neighbors prove that overcoming anything in the Jim Crow South is all but impossible. Covin (Black Politics in a Time of Transition, 2017) writes in a lyrical prose that perfectly summons the rhythms and magic of the tale’s rural setting: “Later on, they would each, one by one, get Ruth-Ann’s story, her full, true story of what had happened. But not this night. This night it was too new, too exciting, too big. It would have to remain mythical and undefined, an occasion for wild extravagances and craziness.” An introductory note reveals that this novel was praised—though rejected—by Toni Morrison while she was working as an editor for Random House in 1977, and it certainly fits within the tradition of black Southern authors that includes Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston. The plot unfurls slowly, but the story feels simultaneously ancient and evergreen. The absorbing book may have slipped through the cracks in 1977, but readers should be grateful to have it now.
An African-American tale crafted with wisdom and poetry.Pub Date: June 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9844350-7-4
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Blue Nile Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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