by Eva Sallis ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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