Fine, sensitive fiction, though the author’s rigorously restrained approach won’t be to everyone’s taste.
A woman finally confronts the past she has blotted out for more than 20 years in Warren’s follow-up to her Governor General’s Award–winning debut (Juliet in August, 2012).
On holiday in Ireland, Frances Moon blurts out to her longtime partner, Ian, that she had a stillborn child when she was 19 and, by the way, never divorced the husband who wasn’t the father of her baby. Back in Toronto, Frances quits her job and heads for Elliot, the small town in western Canada where she grew up. She is devastated Ian might not be waiting when she gets back, but she has done nothing to counter his accusation that “you are a person who resists happiness.” We begin to discern the reasons for this in Chapter 2, which rolls back to the early 1960s to show 5-year-old Frances wondering if her restless, dissatisfied mother has taken off for good while her father weeps at night. Mom does return, making it her mission to ensure that her daughter goes to university and escapes her fate as a farmer’s wife. As Warren traces Frances’ loss-haunted childhood and adolescence—three significant adults in her life die unexpectedly—the present-tense narration underscores that none of these issues have been resolved. It’s painful to watch Frances sabotaging herself: refusing to apply for a scholarship; marrying a much-older man simply because it gives her aimless life some direction; then abruptly changing course when the magnitude of her mistake dawns on her. Warren’s reluctance to delve into her characters’ motivations gives the novel a rather distanced feel for quite a while, though it’s highly readable throughout. Then, just as young-adult Frances “step[s] from the ruins of a life that didn’t happen,” the startling interpolation of the town scapegrace’s back story points us in the direction of a tentative emotional reckoning for Frances as well. The understated yet touching closing pages suggest Frances has achieved some degree of contentment.
Fine, sensitive fiction, though the author’s rigorously restrained approach won’t be to everyone’s taste.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-15801-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Marian Wood/Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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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