A marvelous, convincing feat.
Lush novel by Australian Sallis (Mahjar, 2005, etc.) skillfully uses the deterioration of a sprawling house in the isolated bush to represent the collapse of a large German family of artists.
In the 1970s, the Houdini clan emigrates from Germany to settle in the Whispers, a large property in the hills near Toggenberg, Australia. The seclusion and untameable wildness of the place, strange and even terrifying to the children, is attractive to their world-weary parents, painter Acantia and renowned violist Pa. The couple is intent on leading a virtuous back-to-nature life, home-schooling their offspring and rejecting the “contaminants” of society. Over the years, each child adapts differently to the challenge of the increasingly decrepit house and overgrown, snake-infested grounds. Eldest daughter Beate, ten years old when they arrive, sees her parents’ mission as “the end”; she throws herself into playing the violin, becoming the family’s great hope and eventual tragedy. Ursula, fascinated by the locale’s dark associations, incorporates its mysteries into her games. Gotthilf, bookish but unwelcoming of his mother’s severe teaching methods, earns frequent beatings. Twins Siegfried and Helmut become goat-herders. As their kids move into adolescence, the eccentric parents blind themselves to the activities of a pedophilic family friend, Count Ugolini, who deflowers both Ursula and Gotthilf. The boy becomes a delinquent and runs away to create a new identity for himself as a writer. Ursula goes to university and helps remove younger siblings Lilo and Arno from the house. Appalled by her mother’s mania and her father’s deepening depression, Ursula forces herself to return and keep vigil at the crumbling structure. In deliberate, tactile prose, Sallis creates a chilling sense of physical decay and emotional corrosion.
A marvelous, convincing feat.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-74114-352-7
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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