A gorgeous crazy quilt of a novel, filled with saints and sinners bent on mayhem, southern-style.
Against her will, a Mississippi preacher’s wife is drawn into a web of madness and murder.
Plagued by troubling visions after the mysterious death of her newborn daughter, Leona Sayres steels herself to murder her husband Averill—whom she believes strangled the infant, then buried the tiny body in the woods. Using rat poison, Leona slowly and skillfully does in the oblivious Averill, but she’s stricken with remorse when he suffers an agonizing death. There are others, meanwhile, who secretly rejoice that the fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist went to hell in a hurry, although there’s no shortage of mourners at his funeral. Averill Sayres was undeniably handsome and known for his sexually charged sermons. More than one woman in the congregation found a kind of sensual salvation in his arms—and would have been equally happy to tear out his cheatin’ heart. Now, a temporary sheriff, Blue Hudson, is brought in to investigate, and, later, shocked—but not surprised—to discover that there were a lot of people with reasons to kill Averill. He’s not at all sure that Leona did the deed, and her vulnerability softens his stalwart heart. Blue Hudson is a man as true as his first name (with a tragic history of his own, like everyone in this richly textured story), and he falls in love with Leona as he searches for the culprit. No one is above suspicion—except, perhaps, Leona’s friend Soames Churchill, the serene young widow of a wealthy and corrupt plantation owner. Soames, a consummate southern belle, is a porcelain-skinned beauty with impeccable taste in the clothes, antiques, and men she collects—although she’s not at all as well-bred and well-meaning as the gullible townsfolk believe. But who’s to tell? Enter Darthula, a poor, elderly black woman with “the sight,” who dresses in brilliantly-colored rags and lives in the haunted swamp—and knows what the respectable people in town most want to keep hidden. Will she reveal the truth at the dark heart of this elegantly constructed mystery? Trust Hill (Sacred Dust, 1996), a master of melodrama who deftly employs time shifts and a style at once spare and lurid, to unfold this gothic tale.
A gorgeous crazy quilt of a novel, filled with saints and sinners bent on mayhem, southern-style.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-31862-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
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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