The elegiac tone does little for a lugubrious love story, nor is the golfing scene on the cover likely to entice romance...
Much ado about golfing.
Ross Lansdale spends his 1950s childhood in a Catholic orphanage under the tutelage of kindly Father Martin, an avid golfer who pauses before a shot—playing in the moonlight, no less—to give this unlikely speech to the boys gathered around him: “Every love story is a small boat set upon an open sea. And those things that imperil it, the winds of betrayal, the waves of fear and doubt, are also what earn its dignity in our memory.” He also dispenses advice on how to achieve the perfect swing, which bumbling, bashful young Ross is determined to learn. Time passes. The lonely young boy grows up and becomes a lonely young English instructor with a kindly secretary named Donna, whose chirpy inquiries—“penny for your thoughts, Professor Lansdale”—trigger still more poignant soul-searching. Suffering quietly through life’s vicissitudes, hitting thousands upon thousands of balls into the air before he becomes proficient if not perfect, Lansdale thinks of more deep questions for the bored freshmen under his tutelage at Amherst. Is there love after Herman Melville? Yes! A beautiful student from a working-class background seems interested in golf. Julia’s keen thinking has been shaped by a Seven Sisters college, but she fixes cars and loves her folks—oh, the joy in her eyes when she talks about her family!—and Lansdale is overcome. And Julia looks just like a young Elizabeth Taylor, 1969-style eyeliner and all. Years pass. Love and loss loom large, as do the Old Course and championship at St. Andrews (putt, putt, and watch the birdie—lots of golf talk here). But Julia reappears, with long, silver hair, to succor Lansdale’s lonely heart and dispense kindly advice—by the light of a pale moon, of course. Filled with beauty and pain—and some very pretentious writing—Lansdale’s life comes full circle.
The elegiac tone does little for a lugubrious love story, nor is the golfing scene on the cover likely to entice romance readers.Pub Date: March 16, 2004
ISBN: 0-385-50850-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2004
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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