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GUNGA DIN HIGHWAY

With his brilliant first novel, Donald Duk (1991), playwright Chin accomplished what Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan could not: used Chinese-American culture as a springboard into original and hilarious art. What next? Eccentric movie star Longman Kwan can frequently be seen playing Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Charlie Chan's Number Four Son. Now he wants to be the first Chinese actor to play Charlie himself. In an America where even the Chinese don't take this detective seriously, Longman's plea for the role is a plea for credibility as a person and as an actor. His wife's family criticizes him for choosing Hollywood over traditional Chinese opera, and his sons want little to do with him. Once again, a fascinating premise. The only trouble is that, by page 50, Longman has stepped offstage in favor of his son Ulysses, who's often seen through the eyes of various friends. Scenes of Ulysses in Chinese school or lost in the muddle of racial unrest are memorable, yet the life they describe fails to hold our interest. Chin sets up a situation whereby readers identify with Longman and then are forced to wait for 300 pages—alleviated by only a few cameos—for him to reappear in earnest. When the focus shifts back to a dying Longman, some dozing readers will snap to attention. Bits of the book's dense middle begin to come together, but it's too little, too late. A novel this massive requires a strong plot, which Chin, vacillating between linear narrative and a disastrous hopping about, fails to provide. One wishes he had cut out the book's bulky middle, then filled in the gap with a continued focus on the father-son struggle that first caught our attention. Second novel slump? Let's hope so. (Author tour)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994

ISBN: 1-56689-024-1

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Coffee House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994

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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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