In a skillfully done second novel, Forbes (Alma Rose, 1993) again displays a gift for the critical detail, elegant description, and quiet yet evocative character portrayal. The three thirtysomething Nowle children reunite in Worthing, the picturesque Vermont farm town of their childhood, under the worst of all possible circumstances, their father Vernon having died suddenly, an apparent suicide. But when only daughter and eldest child Vincie—arriving at the farmhouse with her pompous, domineering husband Gifford—learns that Vernon was found slumped over the kitchen table, his dogs locked in the house with him, she becomes immediately suspicious: Her father was a man for whom animals always came first, and though she finds his suicide unlikely, the idea of his allowing his dogs to suffer is inconceivable. Her brothers—biology teacher Darrell, a carbon copy of his strong, silent father, and the dashing city-slicker Chad- -claim to agree, but the only suspects that investigating officer Bret Leroux (a former classmate of Vincie's) seems interested in are the Nowle children themselves. When Vincie learns that her father had been in the process of (but had not yet completed) making plans to turn his land over to conservationists, the plot thickens, a motive for murder appears, and Gifford, as well as Darrell's wife Georgeanne, must also be considered suspects. Meanwhile, as Vincie struggles to solve the mystery of her father's death, she enters into several simultaneous quests: to uncover the circumstances of her mother Phoebe's fatal tractor accident 19 months earlier; to determine if her own marriage is indeed the prison it seems; to get to know her brothers (for really the first time) as adults; and to find—after a lifetime of running away from roots, family, and ambition—her essential self. A story, like a timeles New England landscape, that lingers in the best possible way.
Pub Date: March 20, 1996
ISBN: 1-878067-72-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1996
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
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
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