A light bit of comfort reading for those looking for a fond, if sometimes-irreverent, look back at a bygone era.
Duclon’s debut novel follows the all-American Duncan family over two very memorable weeks in 1961.
It’s Christmastime in Rockford, Illinois, and 11-year-old David Duncan doesn’t have too much on his personal wish list: he wants a fancy new go-kart and the chance to go on a date with his crush, Susie Sweeney. There are a couple of complications, though: he can’t help but blurt out his feelings around Susie, and, more pressingly, she’s more into his best friend, Veto Santello. Meanwhile, his parents—the strict yet gregarious Duke and the kindhearted Phyllis—aren’t onboard with the go-kart idea. Add in a mischievous little sister and a principal with a predilection for corporal punishment, and there’s a lot for David to navigate. By his side is the family dog, Rags, who, when he’s not “jumpin’ and humpin’ ” someone’s leg, is loyal to a fault. The narrative follows David from misadventure to misadventure, whether they involve sophomoric pranks at school, an ill-advised sled trip down “Suicide Hill,” or a dramatic episode at the town’s outdoor skating rink. Duclon, a former executive producer for such TV sitcoms as Family Matters and the creator of Punky Brewster, hits familiar sitcom beats, always looking for the next joke while also showing nostalgia for the time period. He often contrasts moments of genuine Yuletide joy with the particularities of real life, such as a beautifully decorated Christmas tree repeatedly pulled down by a dog or a man in a Santa Claus suit sky-diving with a faulty parachute. Although the characters are somewhat archetypal—the wisecracking protagonist, the Everyman dad, the beautiful girl next door—Duclon puts them into inventive situations throughout, and the plot zips along, never lingering too long on one scene. This is just the first installment of a planned series, but the protagonist is still neatly and tidily developed over the course of the novel, becoming braver and more generous despite the many obstacles in his path. The fact that most of David’s obstacles are self-inflicted merely adds to the fun.
A light bit of comfort reading for those looking for a fond, if sometimes-irreverent, look back at a bygone era.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5488-3074-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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