A halfway decent job of ridiculing a mass-entertainment phenomenon.
A mildly subversive first novel takes aim at reality TV.
Twenty male contestants: the prize, one Virgin. The show’s taping is seen through the eyes of one of those contestants, 27-year-old Joseph Braun, who, with the help of his shadowy handler, Allison, wants to forge a new identity for national television. His new persona is Jeb Brown, a little less Jewish and considerably more assertive. Joseph was a nebbish: fired from his last job, facing eviction, celibate for the past two years because he lost interest in sex (so he claims). But his makeover is far from successful: He’s either tongue-tied or needlessly apologetic in his one-on-ones with the Virgin, an inadequacy that acts as a serious drag on what might have been a story with zip. Barmack is much more successful when it comes to the show’s producers. There’s the heavy, Andrew Weinberg, alternately threatening and smarmy when addressing the contestants: “together you will give America what it’s always wanted . . . innocence, romance and sex.” Then there’s Andrea, his manipulative sidekick, sweet-talking the contestants through “the process.” The action is divided between the guys’ down-time, when they kick back and banter (always on camera), and their interactions with the Virgin, where the ground rules allow kissing and touching, with the Virgin’s permission. There are excursions to the Met, to Vegas, to the guys’ families. Jeb fumbles all his opportunities yet survives the eliminations. With the Virgin, Barmack faces another problem: How to get inside her head? His unsatisfactory solution is to have her send teasing messages to the mysterious Mitch (a platonic boyfriend?). The guys are reasonably well differentiated, so there’s a smidgen of excitement in the horse race. Jeb is an unlikely finalist, but he can’t bring himself to touch the Virgin in the tacky opulence of their Mexican bedroom, and Barmack reserves his most poisoned dart for his surprise ending.
A halfway decent job of ridiculing a mass-entertainment phenomenon.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-312-33513-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2004
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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