An English professor's encounter with a schizophrenic student forces him to reconsider what it means to be human—in an absorbing first novel by the author of the story collection Enemy Country (1984). Matthew Holmay began his professorial career with a pretty wife, high hopes, and the promise of good things to come; but as the years passed, the borders of his life in a midwestern college town narrowed to include only Matthew himself (now divorced), his daughter, Evelyn, of whom he has custody, an old Victorian house that he may never finish renovating, and an academic career that founders as Matthew fails to get started on the requisite book. His remaining talents—a passion for teaching literature and his devotion to his nine-year-old daughter—win scant praise from the outside world, and Matthew feels torn between wanting to win that praise and sinking into the more satisfying life of the spirit and mind. By the time Billy Brand, an earnest young student fresh off the farm, captures Matthew's attention with his puzzling combination of utter vacuousness and occasional brilliant insights into Matthew's most beloved books, the professor, whether he knows it or not, is ripe for seduction. Matthew allows himself to be entangled by Billy's soaring extremes of spirit and mind, many of which challenge the professor's own unconscious ways of living, until Billy's attraction to young Evelyn causes Matthew to draw back in fear. Whether Billy Brand, who calls himself ``Billy Brazil'' in his writing, is truly insane—and what insanity means in any case—is only one of the mysteries in this painstakingly layered tale. More to the point is Matthew's struggle against the painful insights uncovered in the course of a reexamined life, and whether he will ever manage to accept them. Powerful and haunting—a work of great integrity.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-89823-130-2
Page Count: 210
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1991
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
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
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