History enthusiasts will enjoy Altman’s characters, fictional and real, though the general reader may struggle with the slow...
Fiction collides with historical realism in Altman’s (Hollywood East, 1992) novel about a young man whose boldness finds him on a quest for success in early 20th-century New York City.
A child of New York’s Lower East Side, Harry Sirkus is thrown out of his element when he’s suddenly orphaned and relocated to a small New England town. While still too young to understand his parents are gone, he is abandoned by his uncle, who places him in an orphanage, promising to return with great fortune. Harry finds himself on the receiving end of charity and sympathy, getting Thanksgiving dinner and pitying looks from his classmates. This humbling experience serves Harry well—he becomes determined to make something of himself and to do it on his own. When the orphanage closes, he dodges a would-be assignment to be a farmhand in Kansas and buys a one-way ticket to Boston. Through amazing resourcefulness and a lot of good luck, Harry works his way into the growing film industry, finally making his way back to a very different New York City than the one he left as a child. Harry’s fearlessness finds him befriending stars and working for Fox News, unwilling to be shut out of any opportunity. While Harry is an endearing character readers can root for, the story itself is somewhat more enigmatic. The plot becomes lost in finite and mundane detail, characters drift in and out of Harry’s life while only sometimes taking any effect, and the period’s rich and famous lend the novel most of its shine. The movement of the story is guided more by a play-by-play account of the historical context than the narrative’s own velocity, and Altman ultimately weaves in so many supporting characters’ storylines that none stands out in a compelling way.
History enthusiasts will enjoy Altman’s characters, fictional and real, though the general reader may struggle with the slow plot.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0615343273
Page Count: 339
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
