A tender, haunting account of a rural southern family's demise as the parents sicken and die, the gay son contracts AIDS, and other siblings leave for greener urban pastures. Written in stories, each one dated, Johnson's second novel (Crossing the River, 1989) manages to be both intimate and panoramic. Raphael, 36, is the gay son of Tom and Rose Ella Hardin, but the point of view here moves easily from family member to family member—including sister Elizabeth, who near the end collects Raphael's ashes in 1990, and next-door neighbor Miss Camille Perkins, a fount of common wisdom. The story, set in the west Appalachian town of Strang Knob, begins with Tom working wood and musing on his wife's death and his own cancer, which is killing him: he ``has lost the will to ward off the voices and visions.'' Meanwhile, Raphael, the youngest of seven, muses at various places throughout about his long coming-out process, which turned him into ``a human being instead of a rock.'' Son Clark dies in 1970 in Vietnam in the chapter story ``All Fall Down.'' In ``Little Deaths,'' set in 1942, Tom in Rose Ella's presence saves a dog from drowning in a flooded river, thereby sealing the unbreakable bond between them. The book is especially strong in its exploration of the varieties of grief that accompany deaths and losses, though on occasion—as when Raphael in 1972 faces intimations of his sexual orientation in the person of self-described mechanic Willie— Johnson also displays an antic streak. Thoughtful and poised: a careful family chronicle with a gay twist is brought to a poignant close with a haunting plea—``Who will remember me?''
Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-79541-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1993
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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