A first collection of 13 stories, all from a woman's point of view, all featuring domestic themes. In the title piece, a sorrowful woman recollects the lives of her female friends from childhood to maturity; each of the vignettes is sharply realized but inconclusive. Cohen's subtle ``Fabric'' concerns a middle-aged woman's last desperate attempt to hold onto her husband; the fabric of her life is unraveling, leaving her both poor and alone. In the most winning, and hopeful, of these efforts, ``Maps,'' a woman who is dating a man from a family of unmarried brothers marvels at how the men never talk of anything personal, but merely of highways and routes. Finally, she pointedly questions one of them, asking whether he has a girlfriend. He says he does, and proceeds to describe the route to her house in Ohio. In ``Guests,'' an abusive husband hauls his wife, Amber, off to a New York talk show on which couples discuss their sexual problems—making for a nice premise, except that Cohen opts for such a modest, stylized denouement that it's hard to care about Amber, a mere victim who learns nothing from her adventure. Women like Amber appear in several of these stories, and the better-educated, middle-class, politically correct women who comprise most of Cohen's narrators have a curious, vexed relationship with them. In ``Cousin Rina's Return,'' for instance, a woman in labor has a vision of her beautiful dead cousin, a hillbilly, and the experience seems to offer a curious kind of solace. Similarly, in ``From an Eyelash,'' a woman grieving for her dead child recalls her roommate in the maternity ward: Mavis, a woman who knew precisely who she was. But even this most interesting aspect of Cohen's collection—the contrast between a sophisticated woman and her blue-collar alter ego—is less than it might be. Cohen has talent—her work has appeared in publications like American Fiction and Literary Review—but she's still searching for structure and shape.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8262-1073-2
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Univ. of Missouri
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
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
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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