Impossible chronology adds the wrong kind of puzzlement to an otherwise overfamiliar plot.
In Stone’s debut novel, a middle-aged woman reflects on her lifelong struggles toward self-esteem, sexual openness, and healthy relationships.
As Celia Browne, 55, is speaking with Harold, her new lover (a week ago, her therapist), she unwinds a chain of recollection so he can “know how I learned not to be the eternal patient and why everything became sex in my mind.” Celia grows up in Rochester, New York, in a middle-class Jewish family that includes three live-in spinster aunts who contribute to the buttoned-up, sexually repressive atmosphere of the time. Her aunts criticize Celia mercilessly (especially her weight). Her cousins also tease and bully her, and Celia’s parents don’t defend her. Sex is taboo, as is talking about abuse, sexual or otherwise. Celia attends college, meets her first great love, and moves to California where she becomes a children’s librarian. Later, she switches to a degree in social work. As the sexual revolution progresses, Celia sees many therapists, marries and has children, takes a lover, and files for divorce. She comes to realize that “love is so much more than physical satisfaction.” Her honesty and openness, as well as the genuine compassion she shows as a social worker, make her relatable. But other qualities are off-putting: she holds long grudges and is obsessed with looks, weight, and status. Her insights are mostly couched in therapeutic clichés; for example, “She was too lacking in self-worth to believe she was that loveable to anyone.” Sexual repression in the 1950s is a well-explored topic, and the novel adds nothing new. Also problematic is the story’s timeline, which is confused. For example, in 1965, Celia is 26 years old, which would make 1939 her birth year. But in 2005, she’s 55, so she must have been born in 1950. These are not easily reconcilable discrepancies, and they pervade the novel.
Impossible chronology adds the wrong kind of puzzlement to an otherwise overfamiliar plot.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4992-2872-4
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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