Plain Jane Singer, the star of this irreverent—and irresistible—first novel, is a wry, romantic, Jewish truth-teller. With her finely tuned, built-in radar for phonies, she's an updated, female Holden Caulfield from Cleveland. Jane, the valedictorian of her high-school class, has sidestepped college for a secretarial job in a psychiatrist's office. She wants to remain close to Dr. Stevens, her onetime shrink and heartthrob. Also, it seems important to be at home, keeping an eye on things these days when her once close-knit family appears to be unraveling dramatically. It all started with Jane's older sister Caroline getting married to Jonathan Klausner, a doctor from an Orthodox family in New York. Already, Caroline has become more Klausner than Singer, disdaining her own family's customs, following her new mother-in-law's heavy recipes, saying ``Pesach'' instead of ``Passover,'' pretending to be virginal after her promiscuous Cleveland days. After this initial family defection, others follow in the form of death and imminent divorce. Jane stitches as fast as she can in a hopeless effort to patch her family back together. Meanwhile, she's feeling the weight of a couple of guilty secrets she's carrying around: She's engaged to a man she doesn't love, and, worst of all, she's sure she's responsible for the trauma that has affected her younger brother, Willy, making him a kind of pathological fibber. Oy. Just how much responsibility can one smart, sassy, 19-year-old mensch be expected to take? Luckily, Jane figures out the answer. And by novel's end, she's well on her indomitable way to figuring out the rest of her life. When she does, watch out. A plum of a first novel—ripe, juicy, and not exactly strictly kosher.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-679-41261-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1992
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
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
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