In Gates’ (Walking to Israel, 2014) novel, two Vietnam War–era college students have a two-month romance, break up and meet again a decade later in the Middle East.
Seventeen-year-old Clare Meredith is a freshman at Indiana University in 1972 when she first eyes handsome grad student Lowell Goodenow. Outwardly, the two are mismatched: Clare is a hippie from Indiana, while Lowell, who plans a career in the U.S. Foreign Service, is from a fine Virginia family. Despite their differences, however, a passionate, sexually charged romance ensues. Eventually, however, Clare’s anti-war activity brings the relationship to a sudden, seemingly permanent end. Clare signs up for a university program in Mexico, and the trip brings her a new relationship and new adventures, but it doesn’t succeed in erasing her memories of Lowell. Similarly, Lowell begins his Foreign Service career overseas but finds he can’t stop thinking about Clare. Years later, she’s working for a U.S. tech company that sends her to a conference in Kuwait City; there, she comes face to face with Lowell, who’s serving as a U.S. commercial attaché. They find that the sparks are still there, but so are the differences that caused their split years ago, making a reunion appear impossible. Gates is best at setting scenes, and she nicely conjures the pot-filled counterculture vibe of the 1970s as well as the budding technological scene of the ’80s. However, the story dwells too long on the initial campus romance, which sometimes features banal prose (“His gaze swept Clare like a sunburn”). The book is also occasionally marred by awkward descriptions, as when Lowell remembers Clare’s hair as “waist-length ripples lit with damp-looking dark-honey color.” When the former lovers meet in Kuwait City, though, Gates wisely avoids the temptation to have them simply run back into each other’s arms, as if time and distance had not kept them apart. The book’s conclusion may be predictable, but the journey there is by no means dull.
A well-plotted, if uneven, international romance.
Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0988890664
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Wells Street Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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