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SINS

In the second fiction to appear here by noted Filipino writer JosÇ (Three Filipino Women, 1992), the sordid deathbed confession of a local tycoon is as much a portrait of a corrupt and sinful society as a personal mea culpa. Near death, Don Carlos Cobello decides to tell his life story as ``a form of expiation, perhaps, or atonement.'' A mestizo who can trace his lineage back to Castille, a sugar baron, and to a member of the Filipino elite, Carlos has lived a privileged life: His inherited wealth enabled him to indulge both his interests and his appetites. His business acumen made him politically powerful, and his generosity to the government was rewarded by an ambassadorship. But this glittering life is, on closer examination, tawdry and sad. Though scrupulously attentive to details of place and time, Cobello is really concerned with setting down his sexual history, which in its self-absorption, greed, and corruption is a metaphor for the behavior of the Filipino elite, who suppress the population and squander national resources while amassing great personal fortunes. At age 14, he became his older sister Corito's lover—a relationship that endured for the rest of his life; next he seduced a young servant, Severina, whom the family then dismissed, and by high school, a period that coincided with the Japanese Occupation, he was enjoying the women in the brothel his father owned. His business achievements are secondary to his recollections of seductions, local and international, but money doesn't buy everything: The daughter born to Corito is sickly, he himself is syphilitic, and Delfin, a son Severina apparently bore to him, is more interested in helping the poor than in running the family business. Ultimately unrepentant, our sinner blames fate or witchcraft, not himself, for his sins. More a carefully drawn up rap sheet for a whole class than one rather tawdry sinner, but on its own terms illuminating and certainly heartfelt.

Pub Date: May 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-679-42018-5

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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MAGIC HOUR

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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