A year after his lawyer wife was killed in a car accident, a burglary in his house makes New Orleans film reviewer Mike Barnett wonder whether her death was really accidental. Five years before she died, Joan Barnett was hired by black developer Tom Grieve to sue real-estate mogul Sheldon Retif for withholding the right to build Thomas Jefferson Magnet High School on the site that Retif sold Grieve. Losing the case on a shaky verdict by distinguished Judge Leon Delacroix, Joan argued the appeal all the way to a procedural victory in the Supreme Court— but too late to change the location of the school (which had already been built) or help Grieve (who died soon after). Now that the burglary has alerted Mike to Joan's missing Grieve v. Retif files, though, nagging questions return. What did Retif hope to get by building the school on a plot of land the University of New Orleans had donated to the city? Why had Delacroix ruled against Joan's client? Why has Tammy Dieter-White, Joan's old antagonist in the case, forbidden her associate Johnny Chambers, formerly of Joan's firm, to talk to Mike? And what does Joan's death have to do with the current executions of gay men throughout the city? Readers who can get past the leaden badinage of Mike and Joan in extended flashback—plus the oracular wisdom of Mike's endless film reviews, heavy with liberal uplift—will find the answers satisfyingly revealing about racial politics, big-city corruption, and the self- created mythography of the Big Easy. Though it may make you impatient with the characters—how long is it going to take Mike to realize that Joan's death was no accident?—the mystery plot lends Barton (The El Cholo Feeling Passes, 1985; Courting Pandemonium, 1986) a new momentum and a cumulative power that's surprisingly moving.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-679-40813-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1993
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
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
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