COOPERSTOWN

Name: COOPERSTOWN
Author: Eugena Pilek
ISBN: 0-7432-6694-3

by Eugena Pilek ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2005

One scene comes needlessly close to Bull Durham (the town beauty becomes a serial dater of transient ballplayers), and...

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The town that baseball built has some mean secrets that throw a wrench into a handful of lives in Us Weekly editor Pilek’s atmospheric and character-filled debut.

Cooperstown is a place so redolent of America that it has taken on the stature of myth. But there are skeletons in its closets, and Pilek pries them out into the light of day to atone for their sins. The ghosts threaten the town’s very foundation: without baseball, the quaint, kempt town would be just another hardscrabble upstate municipality. Without the glory of the baseball’s immaculate conception on its soil, no one would visit. Pilek never gets ponderous with all this, but, instead, she plays it like background music to the residents who live the myth. Forget about the economics; it’s those who identify with the story of the sport’s origins who will pay the price for having stumbled upon closets with ghosts. One will die of a heart attack, another will hang himself, a third will go mute and mad, another turn to booze, a fifth lose everything and go live in the woods. Still, Pilek is not here to play the wasp with a sting. These episodes have already been played out before the story takes root, and Pilek’s tale is in their being put to right, offering a touch of redemption—of the people, not the sport—and taking a peek at why some things endure and others fall by the wayside. Certainly, the good doesn’t always endure. Promising marriages fail, decent lives are quashed, the myth continues to devour even as it sustains. Perhaps it’s time for the myth to move on.

One scene comes needlessly close to Bull Durham (the town beauty becomes a serial dater of transient ballplayers), and another to Shoeless Joe (a dead father appears from on high), but, otherwise, Pilek offers a choice piece of baseballiana.

Pub Date: July 1, 2005

ISBN: 0-7432-6694-3

Page Count: 256

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.