ONLY THE LONELY

Name: ONLY THE LONELY
Author: Gary Zebrun
ISBN: 978-1-59350-084-9

by Gary Zebrun ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Despite a dearth of plot, Zebrun’s ruminative second novel (Someone You Know, 2004) captivates through the complexity and...

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Coming of age in a dying American town is hard enough. But if you’re Middle Eastern and gay...

It’s early 2001 in the small industrial town of Lackawanna, just south of Buffalo. Asim Zahid is on the verge of adulthood and anxious to escape to the University of Michigan, but tying up loose ends at home as well as the prospect of a new love provide thorny obstacles. The new love is an improbably easygoing redhead named Billy, and the very ease of this budding relationship causes Asim to question it. The major loose end comes in the person of the fragile Sonia, whose sense of reality is skewed by a lifelong immersion in classic old films. The Latvian-born Sonia was the mistress of Asim’s recently deceased father, and Asim promised to look after her as well as the Bethlehem Theater, the movie house which has been the family business for decades. Both Asim and Sonia have literally hundreds of films as reference points. (An early scene finds them comparing the relative merits of big-screen James Bonds, past and present.) Indeed, their film-viewing histories frame their observations of the world around them. While the chapters from Asim’s perspective are bathed in longing, Sonia dreamily morphs memories of past films into her analysis of a bedside clock, a homeless man, Asim’s current mood, etc. The third character in the family mix is Asim’s angry brother Tarik, who impugns the sexuality of both Asim and his father (correctly, it turns out). Tarik, who also has his cinematic influences, may be edging into a terrorist cell, less from political conviction than from inner turbulence.

Despite a dearth of plot, Zebrun’s ruminative second novel (Someone You Know, 2004) captivates through the complexity and vulnerability of its characters and the excellence of its prose, polished to a luminous transparency.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-1-59350-084-9

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Alyson

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2008

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.