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SHOPPING

Name: SHOPPING
Author: Gavin Kramer
ISBN: 1-56947-189-4

by Gavin Kramer ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2000

all stick to the shallow end.

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Tokyo in all its dazzling, dizzying intensity serves as the intrusive backdrop to this smart if somewhat simplified story about

an odd couple of British lawyers assigned there to work, one of whom fails spectacularly at adapting: a sharply detailed, prizewinning debut that was short-listed for the 1998 Whitbread. The narrator, one of the lawyers, a droll, nosy character whose adjustment strategy is threefold—he keeps away from Japanese women, admires a dissolute, prewar Japanese writer, and befriends a tweed-jacketed Anglophile who's a throwback to the 19th century—has decided to take his new colleague, the freakish Meadowlark, under wing, if such a term could fit a man who towers over everyone, in and out of the office. Meadowlark isn't exactly a throwback, even though he does keep a photo of the queen on the wall of his apartment; eventually he overcomes his awkwardness enough to meet a stylishly dressed Japanese girl, Sachiko, whom he first observes using her cell phone and schedule-book while sipping a milk shake at McDonald's. Unfortunately, she turns out to be a schoolgirl, even though very much on the make, and a stormy relationship ensues, which, as it ends, gets Meadowlark so wound up that he punches out a client and loses his job. He disappears into the vastness of Tokyo, though Sachiko does not: she next turns up in the company of a peasant-born Japanese millionaire old enough to be her grandfather. Thinking to expose her activities to her family, however, Meadowlark resurfaces, thereby receiving a final, painful lesson in matters peculiarly Japanese. Images of Tokyo today are engagingly rendered with precision and a knowing eye, but the characters in this flashy pool

all stick to the shallow end.

Pub Date: April 1, 2000

ISBN: 1-56947-189-4

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Soho

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2000

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.