With his customary craft and brio, Jones (This Savage Race, 1993, etc.) records the progress of an Old World pilgrim and his heirs during America's formative years. Robert Chesney, a Scotsman who emigrated to Ulster in search of a better life, is only too happy to quit Georgian Belfast for the wilds of Pennsylvania. Within a few years of making a home for himself on the Monongahela beyond Fort Pitt, however, the colonies take on England in a war for independence. Sergeant Bobby (as he's soon known) joins the revolution and marches to Quebec under the command of Colonel Benedict Arnold. On this abortive campaign, he wins the love of an Indian maid named Nalambigi and acquires a small fortune in gold from a British wagon train that's been ambushed. When peace finally comes, Bobby and Nalambigi trek further west, settling in the thriving riverfront community that becomes Cincinnati. But fiddle-footed Bobby spends precious little time in their new home; instead, he's often off scouting for Lewis and Clark in the Northwest Territory, helping Mad Anthony Wayne suppress insurgent tribes, and otherwise keeping to the backwoods. Meanwhile, Nalambigi is content to raise their children and quietly make her way in local business. Ever eager to beat the white man at his own games, the quirky and enterprising matriarch nurtures the commercial talents of one son (Campbell) and encourages another (Gance) to follow in the forest footsteps of his father. Campbell goes on to expand the Chesney empire while rough-and-tumble Gance runs off to fight for Oliver Hazard Perry in the Battle of Lake Erie. With the Queen City becoming ever more civilized, Nalambigi passes from the scene a year after the Missouri Compromise suggests that her beloved republic may be in for even greater shocks. Thanks to a stubbornly provident streak, however, she dies knowing her grandchildren can, if they choose, test themselves against the westering frontier. A grand generation-spanning tale that brings a melting-pot past to vivid life.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8050-3654-7
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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