A splendid, star-crossed Gatsby update that roasts on the same skewer Washington’s power elite and the journalists they so easily seduce. Imagine Ted Turner buying the Washington Post just so he could woo Sally Quinn. Departing from his spy-thriller beat (A Firing Offense, 1997, etc.), Post columnist Ignatius offers a wickedly cynical insider account of irresistibly charming billionaire Carl Sandburg (“Sandy”) Galvin’s purchase of the stodgy, respected Washington Sun and Tribune (a dead ringer for the Post, despite Ignatius’s denial of this and many other factual congruencies), whose Pulitzer-winning foreign editor, Candace Ridgway, loved and left him back at Harvard. Now in her 40s, the blond and beautiful Ridgway, one of Georgetown’s old money elite, maintains a platonic friendship with David Cantor, editor of the society magazine Reveal who developed an unrequited infatuation for her back when they were putting out the Crimson together. After flattering Galvin in Reveal, Cantor uses his friendship with Ridgway to help him pry the Sun away from its stuffy family owners. Galvin apparently sweeps Ridgway off her feet, naming her editor of the paper, and hires Cantor, the snide, sarcastic narrator of this cautionary tale, with instructions to make the newspaper more fun—which, for Galvin, means sweepstakes, warm-and-fuzzy animal features, and front-page crusades for unsung victims. The entrepreneur also establishes an anarchic cable news studio and, in the form of an inner-city youth scholarship fund, throws enough money around to get good press with the mayor and at the White House. When other papers and political agencies start poking into Galvin’s shadowy past, Ridgway, by now passionately entangled with Galvin, secretly assigns Cantor and two Sun reporters to get the story first. The resulting truth says less about the promises of Gatsby-manquÇs than the twisted logic of aging Boomers, for whom success has come to mean never getting what they want. Fitzgerald’s boozy gloom brightened with social satire, bittersweet romance, and a comic send-up of all that newspapers hold dear, from a man who’s been there.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-679-44861-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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