A lyrical Southern tale of rippling effects.
A debut literary novel tells the interlocking stories of the denizens of a North Carolina town.
In the South in the 1950s, there aren’t any bars. The rich drink at their clubs or one another’s homes. The poor sip at drink houses. Harry Davis runs a beverage distributor in Winston-Salem, though he also oversees an illegal sports-betting operation with his friend Syd Siddon. One of Harry’s employees, Evelina Starlight “Big Rise” Peak—so called because she is the largest woman anyone has ever seen—is a former prostitute and Social Security check thief. Her younger brother, the simple but sensitive Homer Kenny, works for everybody: “Kenny is the fellow who is there if anyone needs anything—The Master of the Job, the Errand, the Task. He works for many people, does many things, knows more than they think he does and keeps his mouth shut.” Benjamin Franklin “Bo” Winphrie runs a drink house, sells drugs, and thinks enough of himself to adopt the first name of rock star Bo Diddley. After a fight about money, Kenny shoots Bo in the drink house; meanwhile, across town, one of Harry’s well-to-do clients accidentally drives his car onto the railroad tracks and is hit by a train. These two events send shock waves throughout the town, destabilizing the usual way of things in Winston-Salem and bringing its communities—rich and poor, black and white—into unexpected collisions. Glenn’s prose is full of color and motion, as here, during Bo’s murder: “The form of Bo stops moving and yanks like being startled, jerking to the right, a pulling back away like un-huh, no, no you don’t, and then Bo’s chin comes up and down like a fast nod and then he cat-dances back to the bar counter and slumps a little bit, but stays more due north than not.” The book’s cast is large, and the narrative hops between characters every few pages, though readers will eventually get to know everyone and can mostly keep track of them. At nearly 300 pages, it’s a long, dense, and meandering tale, but there is plenty about the author’s sprawling yarn to keep readers entertained.
A lyrical Southern tale of rippling effects.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5136-3623-8
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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