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FLOATING KINGDOM

Name: FLOATING KINGDOM
Author: George Rabasa
ISBN: 1-56889-063-2

by George Rabasa ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1997

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Rabasa (the award-winning Glass Houses, stories, not reviewed) offers a colorful tale of the contemporary US-Mexican border with more than a hint of Conrad. Like Conrad's Almayer's Folly, Rabasa's first novel begins (after a framing device) with a vision of a raging river, torrents running out of control. And like Folly, it tells the story of a young man whose intrusion into a small, self-contained world brings down forces of havoc as powerful as those of the river. Simon Tucker is an American teenager who makes a little money by carrying marijuana across the Rio Grande to sell in his high school. Battered by floodtide, however, and by an unknown assailant, he turns up more dead than alive on an island in the middle of the river. Lucio Seguila is the aging master of that island, the half-humorously self-proclaimed Free Republic of Seguilandia. The other people of the ``republic'' are his three daughters, his retarded grandson, and his corrupt, stupid son-in-law. Naturally, Tucker's appearance disrupts life in this little place where the Seguila family survives by some mildly illegal activities and by scavenging. The tragic outcome of it all is diminished not only by being entirely predictable, but by Rabasa's telling the story in a complex series of flashbacks and memories that begins with Simon coming out of prison after seven years for a crime not revealed until the end. Largely, though, the novel succeeds through Rabasa's sure hand with vivid description and setting, and through his deep regard for Lucio, a powerful and likable character in a book otherwise tending to lack psychological depth. Rabasa has an undeniable talent, although mastery of structure doesn't yet seem to be part of it. A not unengaging debut novel. Rabasa bears watching.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997

ISBN: 1-56889-063-2

Page Count: 278

Publisher: Coffee House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997

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

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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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.