A jolting tour through the lower depths of the political machine so often shrouded in darkness and rhetoric.
Slacker speechwriter can’t remember when he last had an uncynical thought—then falls in love.
Ben Bergin is the worst kind of person you’d want working on a political campaign, or the best, and one of the merits of former speechwriter Mizner’s efforts here is that it’s difficult to tell which you’re supposed to think. A knock-around writer of sorts in his late 20s, Bergin affects a studied cynicism that he well knows is just a mask over growing despair: “It’s a story of sideline standing, of cleverly criticizing . . . of sleeping in and sleeping off, of laughing at myself and drinking to numb.” He’s a junior speechwriter for the campaign of Arnie Schecter, a New York congressman from Brooklyn who’s up for reelection—and, not surprisingly, the burned-out Bergin couldn’t really give a toss. He floats into the office after sleeping off the one he tied on the night before, and his drinking is now creeping into the daytime. He’s rudderless and in serious danger of becoming a walking casualty like Schecter’s campaign manager Danny, a horrid sight of middle-aged collapse, tamping down his desperation with food and cocaine. Just about all Bergin has to hang on to at this point is his coworker Calliopie Berkowitz, a shameless do-gooder who organizes the volunteers and flirts with Bergin during their regular rooftop smoke breaks. Not surprisingly, the self-destructive Bergin manages to snuff out whatever flame there might have been between him and Callie, and he spirals further into a sort of Gen-X self-immolation before finally being thrown a lifeline. First-novelist Mizner relates his scabrous tale with a welcome lack of hypocrisy, meaning that Bergin is for the most part pretty irredeemably awful, something no amount of self-awareness can erase: it’s this honesty that gives the novel its potent kick.
A jolting tour through the lower depths of the political machine so often shrouded in darkness and rhetoric.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2004
ISBN: 1-56947-386-2
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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