The novel’s final image is so breathtakingly lovely that it’s almost worth the slog through chapters of navel-gazing.
British actress Woof’s ever-so-serious first novel concerns love, loyalty and passion among members of Britain’s creative intelligentsia.
Former dancer Katherine, now 33, feels trapped by her roles as wife to lawyer Adam (underappreciated and long-suffering), mother to little Kieron and part-time music teacher at a school for troubled boys. Ironically she also resents her parents’ inattention. Her father David has always put the Broughton Poetry Foundation, which he founded, runs and raises money for obsessively, ahead of family; her harried mother May has always put his welfare ahead of her three children. After attending a fundraising gala for the Foundation while Adam stays home with Kieron, Katherine begins a tumultuous affair with the poet Stephen Jericho, one of David’s protégés. Married to matter-of-fact Alison with whom he has two children, Stephen is struggling to write a long epic poem about his troubled family history—his grandparents were Polish Jews and he has always felt an outsider. He and Katherine seem to be soul mates. Even when he accepts an invitation for a cushy stint in America and decamps with Alison and the kids, Katherine believes they are meant to be together. Although she supposedly works her crummy job because she and Adam need the money, she finds a way to fly off to America for a tryst, which is cut short when she receives a call that David has cancer. David puts off treatment while trying to raise funding for an ambitious library he’s planned for the Foundation. David is a charismatic monster who has always surrounded himself with handsome young protégés. He is torn about his sexuality, although it is never clear exactly why, since May long ago accepted his sexual proclivities. But he’s hard to hate. A narcissist, David is also capable of acts of genuine grace. Katherine’s self-pity is far harder to care about.
The novel’s final image is so breathtakingly lovely that it’s almost worth the slog through chapters of navel-gazing.Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-393-07658-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2010
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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