SWEET AND VICIOUS

Name: SWEET AND VICIOUS
Author: David Schickler
ISBN: 0-385-33568-7

by David Schickler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2004

Serious fun and a rare, rich feast for many: Schickler’s unabashed use of allegory and his skillful weaving of the dark and...

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Enchanting debut novel by Schickler (Kissing in Manhattan, stories: 2001), who stitches together a kind of crazy-quilt picaresque that seems to be inspired in equal measure by Pulp Fiction and Parsifal.

There’s an unhappy hood named Henry Dante who works for the creepy Chicago mobster Honey Pobrinkis. Honey (who isn’t above freezing people to death in restaurant coolers) has just managed to buy a seven-stone diamond collection known as the Planets through a middleman who subsequently pockets the stones and plans to flee the country with them. Along with Honey’s other two strong-arm guys—his sinister nephew Roger and screwbally, comic-foil Floyd—Dante is sent to bring them back. But when Roger tries to turn the pickup into a hit, Dante spares the mark, punches out both of his partners, and takes the Planets himself. What do you do when you’ve beat up Honey’s nephew and stolen $40 million worth of ice? You hit the road, of course, and don’t ask where. That will eventually bring you face-to-face with Grace McGlone in Janesville, Wisconsin. The daughter of a devout God-fearing mother and a worthless, unknown father, Grace is a kind of Manichean schizophrenic, a bit like Lara from Dr. Zhivago, who manages to fall in love with Christ despite being raped by her mother’s revivalist preacher: a Christian gospel radio show evangelist by the name of Bertram Block. When Grace and Dante meet at the car wash in Janesville, it’s love at first sight—albeit a very strange love indeed. The deep-down honorable Dante confesses his mob past to Grace, upon which she proceeds to marry him and help him get away. As they flee across the country to outrun Honey’s inevitable retribution, they give away the Planets one by one, until, after a climactic showdown at another God’s Will revival, there’s nothing left but Earth. But, in the end, Earth is enough.

Serious fun and a rare, rich feast for many: Schickler’s unabashed use of allegory and his skillful weaving of the dark and comical make him one of the best new voices in years.

Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2004

ISBN: 0-385-33568-7

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DARK PATH
by David Schickler

- BOOK REVIEW
KISSING IN MANHATTAN
by David Schickler

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.