A fireman's search for his missing wife and daughter leads to lessons about manhood and redemption in a bracing third (Machine, 1984, etc.) by Daily News columnist Hamill. Brooklyn-rooted Kevin Dempsey has just bought his dream house for wife Polly and their daughter Zoe. But on moving day, Polly calls and tells him that she's leaving him for another man, that Zoe is not his biological daughter, and that Zoe can't be found. Distraught, Kevin starts to lose his edge as a firefighter and even his mind, ending up involuntarily committed to a rehab facility, where he falls hard for his therapist, Gail Levy. That leaves the search for Polly and Zoe to Kevin's older brother Frank Dempsey, an emotionally wrecked, alcoholic cop who's about to be indicted for stealing $1.5 million from the police evidence room. Frank enlists the aid of Sarah Cross, Polly's best friend, who had loaned Polly her life savings of $100,000 for a business deal and now wants her money back. An unlikely pairing, beautiful health-nut Sarah and wasted Frank begin a tender, doomed romance, with Sarah trying to save Frank from his prodigious boozing and psychic self-destruction and Frank finally finding the one person he can confess to about the family secret that led him to steal the evidence money. For the first third of the outing, Hamill overdescribes his characters's multiple problems and defects, like a dog circling before it lies down; but once Frank and Sarah get onto Polly's trail, and Kevin and Gail start to grapple with their feelings for each other, the author moves his characters toward a gripping, hard-earned finale that creates both suspense and a fine sense of closure. With brutal clarity, Hamill creates a memorable cast and sets his people on various journeys (literal and psychological) that may not end well for everyone here, but do far better than that for the reader. (First printing of 35,000; $45,000 ad/promo)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-87113-614-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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
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
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