A sequel to the author's The Magnificent Savages (1996), a similarly freewheeling yarn in which historical figures are airily rung in like wind chimes. In the initial tale, American adventurer Justin Savage dealt with lethal kin, pirates on the high seas, and even the Empress of China. Now, beginning in 1882, his children are likewise buffeted by passion and predators—in America, Europe, and China. At 27, Julie Savage fumes because, in spite of her good looks and wealth, she's shunned in the marriage mart since she's half- Chinese. Scorned, Julie leaves the family's Manhattan manse and is off to China. On the train journey west, though, handsome and glamorous Lance Morrow, owner of San Francisco pleasure palaces, woos and wins Julie. They marry but the union ends tragically, and a distraught Julie resumes her interrupted jaunt to China. On a slow boat, she meets American Tim Chin, a secret revolutionary who'd like to overthrow the Dowager Empress, an acquaintance from Julie's childhood. In the meantime, Julie's brother Johnny is galloping around the Wild West with Teddy Roosevelt, where the two meet the recurring menace in Johnny's life, the ``mad'' Marquis de Mores, at whose hands he barely escapes emasculation. Back in New York, Justin is having domestic problems as his Italian wife takes off for her homeland and acquires a lover—whose son, the magnetic Franco Fosco, will feature prominently in the love life of Rachel Lieberman, lovely daughter of Justin's partner. She marries Felix Rothschild—of the famous banking family. There'll be three doomed marriages before True Love triumphs: Johnny's wife strays; Felix has an awful death; Franco Fosco turns out to be a nasty surprise. And the Mad Marquis is everywhere, surfacing finally in Rome. A gossipy, meandering tale, lightweight and as smooth as butter in the telling.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-86412-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1997
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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A group of strangers who live near each other in London become fast friends after writing their deepest secrets in a shared notebook.
Julian Jessop, a septuagenarian artist, is bone-crushingly lonely when he starts “The Authenticity Project”—as he titles a slim green notebook—and begins its first handwritten entry questioning how well people know each other in his tiny corner of London. After 15 years on his own mourning the loss of his beloved wife, he begins the project with the aim that whoever finds the little volume when he leaves it in a cafe will share their true self with their own entry and then pass the volume on to a stranger. The second person to share their inner selves in the notebook’s pages is Monica, 37, owner of a failing cafe and a former corporate lawyer who desperately wants to have a baby. From there the story unfolds, as the volume travels to Thailand and back to London, seemingly destined to fall only into the hands of people—an alcoholic drug addict, an Australian tourist, a social media influencer/new mother, etc.—who already live clustered together geographically. This is a glossy tale where difficulties and addictions appear and are overcome, where lies are told and then forgiven, where love is sought and found, and where truths, once spoken, can set you free. Secondary characters, including an interracial gay couple, appear with their own nuanced parts in the story. The message is strong, urging readers to get off their smartphones and social media and live in the real, authentic world—no chain stores or brands allowed here—making friends and forming a real-life community and support network. And is that really a bad thing?
An enjoyable, cozy novel that touches on tough topics.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7861-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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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
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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