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O CALEDONIA

Name: O CALEDONIA
Author: Elspeth Barker
ISBN: 0-15-167774-3

by Elspeth Barker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1992

But, still, this is an interesting debut, with some beautifully lyrical evocations of place and emotion.

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A first novel of Brontëan intensity and Gothic nastiness from British writer Barker, who, in telling the story of an irrevocably doomed young woman, indicts Scottish life as well.

Janet, the eldest of five—born in her grandparents' comfortable manse near Edinburgh while father Hector is away at war—soon begins the cycle of hurts that will culminate in her murder at 16. After her beloved grandmother dies, Janet is soon and permanently supplanted in her mother's affections by a quick succession of more babies. Vera, the mother, "only really liked babies and found children annoying. In fact, she said it was possible for a mother to dislike her own child"—a fact that doesn't cheer Janet but does reconcile her somewhat to her mother's coldness. But a move to a remote ancestral castle, an austerely beautiful place where winter is five months long, merely isolates Janet further. Her only consolations are reading, learning Latin and Greek, nature, and the friendship of an aging and alcoholic cousin whom her mother detests and soon sends away. Residing in Caledonia, whose Calvinist nature is "pitiless," Janet, exquisitely sensitive to pain and suffering, is predestined to be unhappy. At home, she is ignored by her family; away at boarding school, a bleak and relentlessly anti-intellectual place, she survives by helping with homework and telling stories against herself; and a venture into local society is a disaster. School over, Janet returns home, where her family and their servants treat her with even greater insensitivity. Someone like poor Janet- -isolated, her only companion a bird she's rescued, and increasingly emotionally distraught—can have no happy ending: her rather abrupt murder is a welcome end to a life of unmitigated misery. The unceasing victimization of Janet can seem just too much, as the point is soon taken about narrow and pitiless Caledonia.

But, still, this is an interesting debut, with some beautifully lyrical evocations of place and emotion.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-15-167774-3

Page Count: 152

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.