Only the vivid portraits of presanitized, pregentrified New York neighborhoods offer some relief from the sour monotony of...
In actor/playwright Bogosian’s third novel (Wasted Beauty, 2005, etc.), a successful middle-aged author finds another writer just as egotistical: himself, many years younger.
Richard Morris is single, childless and lecherous. The 56-year-old Jewish novelist lives to write, make money and bed pretty girls. Richard the lover belongs to the wham-bam school; as a thank-you, the lucky lady might get an autographed copy of his latest book (his fifth is just out). Recovering from heart surgery in his Connecticut country house in 2006, Richard stumbles on journals he’d written 30 years ago; the narrative from that point on alternates between the journal entries of Richard the Elder and the Younger. The latter is getting his bearings in New York. He shares a Manhattan apartment with an Israeli and a sexy Polish poet working at a real-estate agency. Richard makes a living answering phones at a video-art company in SoHo—still an actual artists’ colony in the 1970s—but he lives to get wasted, get laid and write up a storm, secretly taping his encounters to use as material for his stories. (Never trust a writer.) This will get him into trouble with Big John, a freaky pot dealer who generously shares his encyclopedic knowledge in his Williamsburg loft. Though Richard the Elder claims to be embarrassed by the excesses of his young self, all that really separates them is the beginner’s boundless energy. Both men are self-pitying, self-involved loners, and a little of this goes a long way, as Bogosian relentlessly hammers home his point. While his previous novels showcased a range of characters, here Richard sucks up all the oxygen. The revelations pile up; the self-portrait darkens to include a conveniently forgotten rape. At the end, Richard tracks down Big John, now a schizo in a nut house, and messes with his old lady and their son. It’s a gratuitous twist of the knife.
Only the vivid portraits of presanitized, pregentrified New York neighborhoods offer some relief from the sour monotony of the two Richards’ escapades.Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4165-3409-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2009
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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