Disappointing second run from Sherwood (the highly touted Vindication, 1993), whose unmemorable protagonistafter scarcely credible encounters with trendy icons and rebels of the 1950sfinally discovers who she really is. As the daughter of a Mormon from Utah, Zoe Mclaren, growing up in 1950s Monterey, Calif., finds the conventional life her father tries to maintain stifling. So apparently does her closet-alcoholic Armenian mother. But Zoe is much more interested in herself. She befriends Margo, the black adopted daughter of leftist intellectuals, and the two girls discuss Camus, look for Beat poets in San Francisco, and dream of college. At the same time, Zoe, though allegedly bright, prefers to act dumb: She seduces Margo's father, and, when he commits suicide after a lovers' quarrel, marries partNative American Grey Cloud right after high school. Grey takes her away to the land he's been given on the Big Sur, where he plans to build a house and observe traditional customs. At first, Zoe is sure she's done the right thing; after all, she was ``loved by a man...our life together was going to have meaning, be a grand adventure.'' But life in the wilds is harder than she'd ever imagined, especially when she becomes pregnant and Greyoverfond of peyotebeats her so badly that she almost miscarries. Zoe escapes to an aunt in Monterey, where her daughter is born; then to San Francisco, where she's arrested for shoplifting. Later, there's a sojourn in Salt Lake City with eccentric but loving Mormon great-aunts; then it's back to the West Coast. Meanwhile, Grey is pursuing her. A horrific confrontation is followed by an unsuccessful suicide attempt, but finally Zoe realizes she must ``hang on.'' As her mother tells her: ``You will never forget, but you can forgive. Forgive yourself.'' Despite the rich mix of culture, history, politics, and relentlessly offbeat characters: not much more than standard insights into family and finding oneself.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-374-16673-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1995
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
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
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