An often entertaining novel about how life can turn out when careers and marriages don’t happen as planned.
In Mulligan’s (Watch Me Disappear, 2012, etc.) novel, three young Bostonians search for real happiness, whatever that may be.
When Abby gets sick while tending bar on New Year’s Eve, her boyfriend, Nathaniel, isn’t available to help her. Instead, he’s at a house party in Worcester, Mass., where he unexpectedly finds his unrequited high school love, Maggie Monahan, freshly divorced and back from California. There, they share a kiss as Abby, back in Boston, takes one pregnancy test after another, eventually confirming her worst fear. She decides that she will have the baby, even though Nathaniel, a philosophy professor and former rock musician, has a drinking problem. Meanwhile, Maggie navigates the choppy waters of living at home with a useless liberal arts degree, until she finally picks up a job at Macy’s and makes a new best friend. Abby’s own best friend, Breanna, prepares for her wedding while tending to Abby’s needs as a mother-to-be. Nathaniel fails to show up to support her pregnancy, instead pining for Maggie and sleeping with another woman. All of their lives collide when Nathaniel’s band comes together for a reunion show, and the main characters must define what adulthood means to each of them, which leads to some hard decisions and happy endings. The novel unfolds in alternating chapters from the perspectives of Abby, Nathaniel and Maggie, which keeps the story moving but never allows readers to get close to any one character. The episodic pace keeps the story clear but predictable, much like the characters’ emotional baggage: Nathaniel is haunted by an alcoholic father who never believed in him, and Maggie is wary of letting another man with a drinking problem into her life. The epiphanies come hard and fast as the novel winds down, making for a rushed conclusion in which every character accepts his or her lot in life. It may not be the most original modern romance, but many readers will find comfort in its familiarity. Bostonians will particularly enjoy the novel’s sprawling Massachusetts backdrop and its authentic assortment of bars, T stops and small-town details.
An often entertaining novel about how life can turn out when careers and marriages don’t happen as planned.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1304602213
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2014
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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