A compelling tale of the ultimate faithful wife, though the telling is hindered by an awkward structure and lacks emotional...
A woman works diligently to obtain her husband’s release from prison.
In 1998, middle-aged divorcée Doretha “Doe” Vaughn looks for love online and finds it in charming Sam Cawley. When they meet, things click. But there’s a chink in this knight’s armor—Sam pays for dates with cash, has no relatives and makes a slip about prison food. Happily in love, Doe looks the other way, and Sam moves in with her. The two marry in June 2001 and, like any good wife, Doe adds Sam to her health insurance coverage—which eventually leads to his undoing. In May 2006, the truth comes out—Sam Cawley is William Wallace, a convicted felon who was serving time for a drug charge, and who now faces resentencing and charges of identity theft. After William is apprehended, Doe is advised to divorce but stands by her man. As a doctor, her compassion extends to all—“You take care of the victim as well as the perpetrator without prejudice.” Although the book is a novel, it reads more like a nonfiction primer for wives who find out that the old ball and chain has, well, escaped the old ball and chain. The author is also a character in the novel—an interviewer who plans to write a book (possibly this book) about Doe’s story, which is, nevertheless, written here in the first person from Doe’s viewpoint. This literary device serves no purpose beyond letting the reader know, in the preview of Volume 2 of the novel (titled The Doctor’s Fugitive), that Volume 1 (The Fugitive’s Doctor) has been on the New York Times Best Seller List for 27 weeks. In spite of confusing transitions from narrator to interviewer, the play by play of events—Doe’s work as an emergency room physician, her take on the criminal justice system and her fight to free William—is convincing, but the emotionality of the characters is not.
A compelling tale of the ultimate faithful wife, though the telling is hindered by an awkward structure and lacks emotional impact.Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-1461172611
Page Count: 298
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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