An affecting work with a ring of authenticity.
Crane’s intensely engrossing, well-wrought debut explores an unorthodox relationship between a trauma victim and her doctor in Washington, D.C.
Former ballet dancer Kerry Taylor survives the car accident that kills her husband and young son, but six weeks later remains in a catatonic state that has no physical cause. So pushy Southern belle Arlene brings her 34-year-old daughter to the Rosewood Clinic, a cutting-edge psychotherapeutic facility where Dr. Michael Myatt is trying to establish his reputation in psychokinetic healing, which taps into the body’s “basic will to thrive.” Chapter titles refer to Michael’s methodology (“Orientation,” “The Will to Change,” etc.) as he deals with Kerry and a handful of other patients, including aggressive, foul-mouthed Manic Marcus and orange-haired, thumb-sucking Johnny B., whose development was arrested by a sexually abusive mother. Michael’s mind-body exercises involve breathing and making gentle movements that gradually bring about a wondrous, sympathetic alignment between patient and doctor. Some observers, such as nosy head nurse Frieda Carter, might deem this alignment sexual and thus inappropriate. Moreover, fastidious, rather obsessive Michael is attractive to women, and his affair with one of the younger nurses exposes his hubris. The author alternates among several narrative strands: Michael’s increasingly effective sessions with Kerry; extracts from her pre-accident journal addressed to her dear friend and former dance partner, Hugo; and scenes of mother hen Arlene’s anxious caretaking (husband Beresford has had a heart attack). The author could have provided more backstory about Michael’s own troubled parentage here; readers may well echo Arlene’s question, “What makes a person choose such a pain-ridden profession?” But Crane’s portraits are deeply human, and her novel benefits from the author’s background as a former ballet dancer and student of Buddhist psychology and psychokinetics.
An affecting work with a ring of authenticity.Pub Date: March 12, 2006
ISBN: 1-55192-781-0
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Raincoast
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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