A rich and satisfying novel that explores in a significant way contemporary issues of family, religion and politics.
An exploration of Tolstoy’s dictum about unhappy families.
Richard Shapiro, his wife Louise and daughter Molly are living the good life in California when tragedy hits. Richard, a therapist, has a patient who unexpectedly takes her life, and a short while later Richard, still stunned by the suicide, accidentally sets a forest afire on a camping trip to Colorado. In response to these woes, the Shapiros decide to uproot themselves and begin a new life in southwest Michigan. Richard takes a job as a Director of Psychological Services at a local prison, but Louise, a social worker, has trouble finding appropriate work in Stickney Springs. Although she eventually gets a part-time position as a counselor at the local high school, she’s put off by the politics (right-wing) of the locals, by their denial of evolution and by their sympathy for militias and conspiracy theories. Pollack sets her novel around the time of Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and some of the locals were known to have consorted with McVeigh—and they even show some sympathy and support for him. While Richard’s status as a Jew makes him a curiosity in this largely evangelical community, he finds himself unaccountably drawn toward survivalist acquaintances. Louise begins to grow apart from Richard, still haunted by his failure as a therapist. As their emotional distance increases, Louise begins a torrid affair and discovers that passion is a stern master—while it makes her feel most alive, at the same time it tears her apart.
A rich and satisfying novel that explores in a significant way contemporary issues of family, religion and politics.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-935536-12-3
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Four Way
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
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
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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