The stifling humidity of the prose will push a lot of readers out of this kitchen.
Take a batch of characters, toss them into one cooking class, glaze heavily with folk wisdom.
Lillian, the Pacific Northwest restaurant owner and teacher of the Monday night school of the book’s title, is part matchmaker, part Buddhist priest, part Alice Waters. She specializes in organic ingredients and a slow-cooking, who-needs-recipes style, an approach she perfected as a child when her dad ran off and her mother retreated into books. Cooking, for her, is a pathway to healing, and conveniently enough her latest group of students could each use some help. Among them are Chloe, a young woman who’s klutzy and in a bad relationship; Tom, who’s mourning the death of his wife; Claire, a mom who fears motherhood is erasing her identity; Ian, a computer engineer who’s incapable even of cooking a pot of rice; and Carl and Helen, an older couple who’ve gotten past a history of infidelity. Together they reminisce, vent and learn their way around crab dishes, cakes and Thanksgiving dinners, even though Lillian’s stingy about instructions and the entrees aren’t exactly beginners’ fare. Bauermeister capably evokes the sensual pleasures of a busy kitchen, but her story is thickly sentimental, all smoothed edges and earnest dialogue. For instance, one character introduces herself, ridiculously, by saying, “before you start cooking with me, I should tell you, I am losing my way, these days.” No worries: Lillian will assuredly give her and the rest of the class some direction, and Bauermeister guides each individual’s story along with a pitiless blitzkrieg of soft-focus similes and metaphors—each action and detail persistently equates to a dancing child, a happy puppy, a down comforter, a butterfly or a flower. To her credit, the author pulls off a tough trick of juggling an assortment of characters and making each feel lived-in and human. But as she inevitably guides each toward bliss, the book feels less empathetic and more hokey and melodramatic.
The stifling humidity of the prose will push a lot of readers out of this kitchen.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-15543-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2008
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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