An intriguing, ambitious literary work that will reward more patient readers.
Another complicated, multi-layered plot from English novelist McGregor (The Ice Child, 2001), this time concerning an upscale art appraiser obsessed with the work of a mad Victorian artist.
Catherine Sergeant left a promising position at Bergens in London some years ago when her usually dependable husband, Robert, took an accounting job in the countryside. Now working at a fancy auction house in Dorset, she feels baffled and betrayed by Robert’s sudden, inexplicable, but clearly intentional disappearance. A subtle, intelligent writer, McGregor is not satisfied with dwelling on the domestic crises of a newly abandoned wife. Catherine has entertained a fixation throughout her art career with Victorian painter Richard Dadd, an early genius who was incarcerated in mental asylums for 40 years after cutting his father’s throat with a penknife. Grieving over Robert, Catherine meets John Brigham, an eccentric, wealthy architect 20 years her senior who lives in a gorgeous Arts and Crafts cottage in the area. Grandson of the artist’s attendant at Bedlam insane asylum, John happens to know quite a bit about Dadd and even possesses a secret cache of his work. Startlingly, Catherine reminds the architect of a character in one of Dadd’s paintings. To further confound the rather contrived plot, John suffers from a mysterious, romantically fatal heart ailment, adding urgency to his affair with Catherine. The novel would disintegrate in less capable hands, but McGregor deliberately builds her narrative and manages to invest it with suspense by alternating between the contemporary story and grim glimpses inside Bedlam in the mid-19th century as Dadd paints his fanciful masterpieces. The author also offers just enough detail about chilly, callow Robert to attract and repel. Ultimately, however, the promise of John’s jealous, unstable sister, Helen, to reveal family skeletons stuffed in the closet (or, in this case, under the house’s floorboards) throws the story verily over the top.
An intriguing, ambitious literary work that will reward more patient readers.Pub Date: July 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-553-80359-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2005
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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