A Western tale packed with intriguing historical issues but lacking fully developed characters.
This third installment of a series revives Marshal Angus Esperraza for another eventful ride, this time joining a research expedition retracing the forced relocation of the Navajo.
Angus has no plans for the day in Chama, New Mexico, beyond studying a map, but when a telegraph comes in telling him about a new assignment, he jumps into action. Or rather, first he has a chat with his gunsmith wife, Jill, which sets the tone for this Western, full of long discussions and thoughtful interactions in 1888. In fact, lengthy talks are the point of Angus’ latest mission. He is accompanying a Smithsonian researcher and writer, a military man, and a Navajo woman along the path used by the Army when the Navajo were relocated to Bosque Redondo in New Mexico. Naturally, tensions flare, and a series of crimes—a young guide shot and killed, a stagecoach brake sabotaged, etc.—raises the possibility that someone doesn’t want this research concluded. While this seems like a classic Western setup—complete with a stagecoach full of diverse characters—the focus isn’t on typical action scenes, but on more cerebral issues of history. At times that emphasis on dialogue leads to some didacticism, and not just from the Smithsonian’s researcher: for instance, the man described as “an experienced teamster” goes on to note regional differences in what the driver is called—“a whip back East, or a teamster out West.” The Navajo woman imparts a history lesson, asking, “Did you also know that it was a Mexican, a man called Nakhayazih, who established the first trading post at Chinle in 1882?” There are some engrossing tidbits about the past in Stuart’s (Anatomy of a Confession, 2016, etc.) work, and some impressive conversations about the violent Long Walk of the Navajo. But with many in the cast sounding more alike than different, and with much of the book being taken up by those exchanges, readers may end up educated about the bloody history of the Southwest, but not necessarily engaged by these characters.
A Western tale packed with intriguing historical issues but lacking fully developed characters.Pub Date: March 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9863441-4-5
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Gleason & Wall Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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