THE SWEEP OF THE SECOND HAND

Name: THE SWEEP OF THE SECOND HAND
Author: Dean Monti
ISBN: 0-89733-490-6

by Dean Monti ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2001

Playwright and storywriter Monti has a gift for laidback humor that marks him as a writer sure to gain a dedicated if small...

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An insomniac slacker just might find true love—if he can stay awake—in this lo-fi, comic debut.

Years ago, Malcolm’s father needed a money-losing business that he could use as a tax write-off. To this end, he picked up an aging film palace on the outskirts of an unnamed midwestern city and had his going-nowhere son run the place. With no incentive to turn a profit, Malcolm manages the Arcadia Filmhaus as if it were his own private screening room. Since he doesn’t deal well with people, the fewer customers who show up for a film, the better. It’s all Kurosawa, Fellini, and Bergman at the Arcadia (and only the ones with short titles—he’s afraid of heights and doesn’t like being up on the ladder changing the marquee longer than necessary), screened in a poorly ventilated theater with concessions served up by Ginny, the rude and attitudinal teenager who’s Malcolm’s only employee. Even though he works only about six hours a day, he sleepwalks through it all looking like the living dead: “I’ve got yellow jackets in my wall and I’m not getting enough sleep” is his refrain to anyone who asks him what’s going on. Obsessed with a belief that he’s losing exactly one minute of z’s each night, Malcolm goes to doctors and snooze therapists who tell him nothing’s wrong. Meanwhile, his girlfriend of seven years, Lena, is getting married to a doctor and he’s halfway falling for the singer (“I do post-punk ballads and dirges”) from a band called Circadian Rhythm Section whose name he can’t remember and whose dates he keeps falling asleep through. Malcolm’s schlumpy appeal is considerable, and all Monti has to do is ease him through an occasionally forced-feeling set of blackly comic episodes (Malcolm’s laughable attempt to run a film festival is especially predictable) for this to work.

Playwright and storywriter Monti has a gift for laidback humor that marks him as a writer sure to gain a dedicated if small following.

Pub Date: June 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-89733-490-6

Page Count: 327

Publisher: Academy Chicago

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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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.