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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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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

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.