In a second collection of blue-collar stories (The Rat Becomes Light, 1990), Secreast continues to impress with gritty, heartfelt fiction that chronicles life in a North Carolina factory town—this time by interconnecting 11 pieces that tell the moving saga of one family. Curtis and Adele Holsclaw, in the Appalachian foothills, have three children: wild Marleen, curious Phyllis, and bashful Dennis. The stories about the family move from their early life together to last things, mostly in chronological order. In ``Where the Modern World Begins,'' set in 1952, Curtis is a gambling man busy in his yard digging a septic tank. A rooster won by gambling attacks his son Dennis, and Curtis puts an end to the rooster—and, we suspect, to his gambling career—by impaling the bird. By ``Road Skills,'' set several years later, we're watching Marleen, already clever to the world, pretend to learn how to drive from her father (boyfriends have already taught her): ``Marleen knew which [gear] was which, but she waited until Curtis pointed before touching the pedal he indicated.'' ``If You See Me Coming'' is a dazzling coming-of-age story featuring Phyllis that climaxes with her climbing into an iron lung in order to understand the limitations of life. After the title piece—in which Gaither Drum, who ``on a busy day...could carry twelve tacks at a time in his mouth,'' saves Marleen from Junior McLaughlin (``shiftless enough and stubborn enough to be considered dangerous by the local law'') through an upholstering contest—things turn grim. Remaining stories chronicle the death of a grandparent, Marleen's divorces and slow death from cancer, and Curtis's and Adele's effort (in ``The Necessary Arrangements'' and ``For Sentimental Reasons'') to grieve without turning to stone. A bull's-eye—full of luminous detail and a wisdom grounded in seasonal, industrial and, most of all, familial cycles.
Pub Date: May 26, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-016441-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
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
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
