A potentially intriguing tale of magical realism marred by punctuation oddities and other narrative challenges.
In this debut novel, a modern-day woman encounters a mysterious female spirit in a hand mirror, leading to her traveling to Mexico and uncovering family secrets.
Marie is alone in her grandmother Rose’s ancestral Connecticut home. Rose has just died, and Marie recalls that her grandmother made her promise that a certain silver hand mirror would never be sold. Marie goes to the gloomy bedroom where the mirror sits and turns it over. She sees a woman who looks just like her staring back at her. Through conversations with this spirit and assisted by a family lawyer, Marie learns that the woman in the mirror is Louise Theresa Guiterrez, the Mexican woman whom Rose’s father Charles had married while serving under Gen. Pershing during the Mexican Revolutionary War. Louise died in childbirth in that dark bedroom while Charles’ social-climbing mother did nothing to help her. Charles then followed through on his mother’s plan for him to marry wealthy Tillie, but he never recovered from Louise’s death or from other actions taken shortly thereafter. Rose learned of some of these secrets when she turned 21, but Marie now uncovers more of the story as she conducts additional research, then returns with the mirror to Mexico. Taking on the daunting task of making the spirit world believable, first-time novelist Lagone is largely successful. For example, the scenes in which Marie talks to the mirror could have been laughable, yet in this narrative, they hold surprising power. Unfortunately, Lagone decided not to set off dialogue with quotations marks, which creates a run-on effect that’s often difficult to decipher. Additionally, the rather intricate retelling of Louise’s story cuts among different times and perspectives (Louise, Tillie, the family lawyer, etc.), which still leaves many elements, including Marie, somewhat shadowy. Still, there’s plenty of promise here, culminating in a dramatic twist ending that, like the rest of the novel, would benefit from further development.
A potentially intriguing tale of magical realism marred by punctuation oddities and other narrative challenges.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2013
ISBN: 978-1491817926
Page Count: 286
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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