Responding to a magazine ad that may have been placed by her biological mother, Sarah Barrett abandons her Bucks County family and runs slowly to disaster—in this sedate, ruminative thriller from Busch (Closing Arguments, 1991, etc.). No sooner does Sarah's husband Barrett find his wife gone than he parks his six-year-old son Stephen with his in-laws in Burroughs, New York, and goes west to Santa Fe, inspired only by a vague feeling that Sarah's headed back to her spiritual roots there. But Sarah, driven by ``that emergency feeling'' (as she calls it in a cryptic note to Stephen), is much closer than that: she's gone only as far as western Pennsylvania, where her birth mother, Gloria Dodge, makes her meddlesome rounds as an herbalist/nurse. As Barrett sinks deeper into oblivion via a masochistic liaison with Santa Fe barfly Marylinn Conover and her unappreciative husband, Sarah decides that she doesn't like Gloria (``Call me Mother''), resents her own abandonment, and wants out of this woman's life for good. Too late: drawn by the promise of a grandson she's never seen, Gloria takes off for Burroughs, where she lures Stephen into her car and immediately starts to demonstrate why her giving away Sarah wasn't such a bad idea. Unlike Closing Arguments, which had the energy of authentic pulp, this one is weighed down by the characters' enervation; the pulpish plot is mainly an armature for Busch's reflections—mostly through Sarah's anguish over her impossible status as daughter, adopted daughter, and mother—about commitment, forgiveness, and the loss of innocence. Only Sarah's adoptive mother, Lizzie Mastracola (returning from Rounds and Sometimes I Live in the Country), has the starch to stem the general tide of lassitude. At his best, Busch seems to press for new ways to register characters, their language, and their relationships—but his best shines out only fitfully in this murkily conceived fable.
Pub Date: May 17, 1993
ISBN: 0-395-63415-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
