Minot works hard to pull it all together, but this is very uneven—and often very frustrating—work.
A long family history of incompatibility and enmity shatters several lives in this ambitious first novel, set in urban Massachusetts and on an island off the coast of Maine.
Initially, the narrator is Timmy Curtis, a 30-ish boy-man whose adulthood and marriage are shadowed by the figures of his late mother (killed when her car collided with a moving train) and distant “Dad” (a retired investment banker)—and, especially, by his free-floating younger brother Simon. The latter is a chronically under- or un-employed artist who subsists on “borrowed” money and maintains an angry nonrelationship with his dad, who wants Simon out of his life and refuses him living space in either of the family’s homes. When Simon secretly inhabits his old rooms, never noticed by his distracted father, things come to a head, even though the two never meet. Dad is found dead, and Simon is arrested and indicted for murder. The story then shifts among several viewpoints as well as past and present, juxtaposing the details of Simon’s ordeal (free on bail under surveillance, then house arrest) with numerous detailed flashbacks depicting the family’s retreats to its quiet haven on Burnt Island, and Simon’s increasingly conflicted standoffs with all the other Curtises except his impulsive “Mum” (whom Simon resembled as much as Timmy resembles buttoned-down Dad). The Blue Bowl (whose title denotes a missing object that suggests another theory of the murder) has a herky-jerky unevenness, marked by rambling sentences and muddy writing (the omnipresence of hippie jargon in Simon’s musings is particularly jarring) and sharp observations (“That’s horrible. She said it like a whore”) and images (“snow rested calmly over fields, loaved on cars”). And the predictable (though inconclusive) outcome of Simon’s trial is followed by an almost unbelievably lame last-minute surprise ending.
Minot works hard to pull it all together, but this is very uneven—and often very frustrating—work.Pub Date: April 2, 2004
ISBN: 0-394-57348-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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