Over-the-top complications sometimes get in the way of Lee’s wry commentary on contemporary life.
Lee (Country of Origin, 2004, etc.) whimsically examines the intertwining of some rather fey lives over a Labor Day weekend in a small California community.
The title is both apposite and ironic, for Lyndon Song’s life seems to be heading south. Living in Rosarita Bay, Lyndon is a refugee from his former life as a successful sculptor in New York City. He has now opted for a more Arcadian lifestyle as a Brussels sprout farmer—and on the side he grows an impressive crop of marijuana. Family matters also grow thick when Lyndon’s brother Woody decides to visit. Woody is a formerly hot movie producer whose specialty is taking Asian action movies and “translating” them into English, but his recent projects have been derailed. The brothers haven’t seen one another for 16 years, and Lyndon would be perfectly happy to keep Woody away for another 16. Lee tries to harmonize multiple strands of the narrative, as Woody tries to lure Yi Ling Ling, an aging and out-of-control kung-fu actress, into his project. Meanwhile, Lyndon continues to fight off two powerful forces, both economic (a powerful developer wants his farm) and personal (Lyndon’s former lover, the current mayor of Rosarita Bay, is angry with him and keeps slashing his tires). Lyndon finds himself attracted to Laura Díaz-McClatchey, a masseuse who eases his tense muscles, but who also, we find out later, is a former museum curator interested in his work. Lyndon would like to keep his life intact, for it’s at least pleasant if not perfect, but over the weekend everything threatens to spin out of control (see title); an anarchic energy emerges that infects and unites both Lyndon and Woody. Subplots propagate like bunnies, as Woody tries to track down why an old acquaintance committed suicide. (Woody also gets involved with two lesbian environmentalists studying snowy plovers.)
Over-the-top complications sometimes get in the way of Lee’s wry commentary on contemporary life.Pub Date: April 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-393-06232-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2008
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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