A bleak, blackly comic departure for Moggach, who's done some amusing satiric surgery on assorted contemporary British foibles, and who sympathetically investigated the matter of surrogate motherhood in To Have and to Hold (1987). Here, we have the raw- nerved, jumpy, zigzag, running-on-empty self-narrated chronicle of an English stand-in for a blond American movie star. Much pounding of the heart, grinding of teeth, along with some zaps at the Hollywood scene—all followed by murder and a neat ending twist. Julia Sampson (``Jules'') feels nothing in particular when she first sees Lila Dune—a star ``specializing in daffy, slightly tacky blondes''—filming in London. And nothing in particular is changing in her own acting career (at present she's a fairy godmother in an environmental kids' show) until her resemblance to Lila gets her a stand-in job. Casual conversation with Lila, who's the simple, self-absorbed, offhand kind, bruised by rotten relationships with men, is a one-way street; Lila doesn't take in much from the outside. But a kind of friendship happens, and in America the more intelligent, intellectual Jules begins to guide Lila's rocky boat. Back home, however, Julia had made a mistake in introducing Lila to her dynamite lover, Trevor, whose voltage could melt bones. In the US—New York and Hollywood—something else is cooking Jules's innards—namely an obsession with Lila (``the me I longed to see''). In crazy, secret masquerades, Jules begins to step into Lila's persona. Then guess who Lila's new man—and prospective husband—is.... Lila had said to Jules once, in admiration, ``I sure as hell wouldn't like you for an enemy.'' How true. Some ``severe schizoid'' creepy stuff, ranting and broadax satire, set on both sides of the Atlantic and a place called enigmatically ``Here.'' With a marvelous snap of a windup, an absorbing, inventive chiller, complete with undertones of a sour, wry humor.
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1991
ISBN: 0-316-57751-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1991
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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