A dark, humorous portrait of a dysfunctional modern family. With its interesting premise and diverse, flawed characters,...
If revenge is a dish best served cold, then Marylou Ahearn is serving up ice cream.
Some 50 years after being unknowingly exposed to radiation during a scientific study of pregnant women, she vows to finally kill the doctor in charge of the experiment—one Wilson Spriggs. Not only did the procedure leave her with lingering health issues, but she remains convinced that it contributed to the death of her daughter Helen, who passed from childhood cancer. Taking her alias, Nancy Archer, from the radioactive heroine of the camp classic film Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, she heads down to Tallahassee, where Wilson now lives with his daughter and her family. Moving into their neighborhood, she befriends Wilson’s 13-year-old granddaughter Suzi, and discovers, to her chagrin, that he is suffering from early dementia symptoms and is unlikely to even remember the experiment. Biding her time and deciding whether or not to kill the old man, Marylou plans to secretly torment his family, not understanding that they are already doing that to themselves. Mom Caroline feels stifled in her marriage to Vic, and dreams of moving to Memphis with her eldest daughter Ava. Ava, an awkward beauty, is obsessed with Elvis Presley and dreams of becoming a model. The oldest son, Otis, who struggles, like Ava, with Asperger’s Syndrome, is secretly trying to build a breeder reactor in a backyard shed, using information he gleans from his grandpa. And weary patriarch Vic is sexually tempted by an old friend, Gigi, who works for him. Marylou insinuates herself into all their lives, taking Suzi to a megachurch and Ava to a photo shoot, where a sleazy photog snaps nudes of her. Several family disasters ensue, and Marylou ends up kidnapping Wilson, who may recollect more than he lets on.
A dark, humorous portrait of a dysfunctional modern family. With its interesting premise and diverse, flawed characters, Stuckey-French’s (Mermaids on the Moon, 2002, etc.) black comedy could have been even stronger. A tighter plot and a more developed heroine would have helped.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-51064-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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