all stick to the shallow end.
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
