THE PAINTINGS OF OUR LIVES

Name: THE PAINTINGS OF OUR LIVES
Author: Grace Schulman
ISBN: 0-618-08622-6

by Grace Schulman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 12, 2001

Schulman's range of tone is not wide—it runs from somber to meditative—and does not dare too much, but in its limited sphere...

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Schulman’s fourth volume is a collection of elegies and prayers, whose last note is an injunction, overheard rather than delivered: “Praise life.” But most of these poems are works of remembrance, and often grief; they concern lonely stretches of road, dead mothers, and heroines lost at sea. The need to rhapsodize apparently comes later, when the ghosts are, if not quite laid to rest, at least faced for what they are. Schulman writes a graceful line, with such subtle shifts of syntax and direction that only after eight lines of muffled pentameter (in “Poem Ending with a Phrase from the Psalms”) do you realize that the whole affair is a single sentence. Her rhymes, sparingly employed, can be so understated that they nearly merge with the meter, eschewing the hammer blows of emphasis: in “Carnegie Hill Birdlore,” she links “wake” with “mosaic,” and “icons” with “stones,” all of which takes a fine chisel. Though she does not strike too many classicist notes, Schulman is comfortable with the formal devices she selects, which include a powerful sonnet sequence about her mother’s death and her own attempt to see that life as it was, in detail. Schulman’s other large theme is New York, a city that presents itself to her in ancient dress, a kind of Rome for the New World. Whitman and Crane necessarily loom like skyscrapers in the background, but Schulman’s treatment is deflationary: it avoids cosmic allegories in favor of the personal and historical. In “Brooklyn Bridge,” the poet meets “a vision of my grandmother in 1920, / belled skirt, braided red hair. She slithers under her stalled Ford and out again, tarred black, then cranks the engine.”

Schulman's range of tone is not wide—it runs from somber to meditative—and does not dare too much, but in its limited sphere her golden bowl is flawless.

Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2001

ISBN: 0-618-08622-6

Page Count: 96

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001

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.