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
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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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