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FEARFUL SYMMETRY

A febrile and overwrought passage through the thickets of sexual obsession, in which Bills (Consider This Home, 1994) manages to illustrate the degradations of lust while conveying very little sense of its appeal. Peter Keith, from the very first line of his narration—``I didn't mean to fall in love with them''—seems determined to exonerate himself. A 25-year-old furniture designer from a working- class family, Peter moves into a tastefully landscaped housing development in southern California and becomes fast friends with his next-door neighbors, the Lambents, who seem to embody the sort of natural-fiber sophistication that Peter has had to cultivate so carefully on his own. It's not clear what Chaz and Muriel Lambent do, but Chaz is sleek and earthy in a Bruce Weber-ish kind of way (when Peter first spies him, he is hosing himself down in the back yard after an early-morning swim) and Muriel is ``like a Modigliani sculpted in the flesh.'' In short order, Chaz seduces Peter, then flabbergasts him by bringing Muriel in for the second round. Although Peter seems gay in all of his instincts and most of his tastes, he finds that he actually enjoys this variation, and soon he is happily established as the free agent in their mÇnage Ö trois, which at first revolves mainly around sex and parties. Chaz and Muriel, however, quickly raise the stakes: To bondage, then to sadism, then to outright degradation and torture. Though Peter reaches his threshold soon after they embark on animal sacrifice, he is unable to break loose until the bloody climax of their obsession. Even then, of course, he can't rest in peace. He is doomed to remember the Lambents, to spend the rest of his life wondering ``what kind of life might persist after a heart's illicit union with the celestial.'' Hackneyed and remarkably lifeless: a Honcho fantasy written in Harlequin prose.

Pub Date: June 17, 1996

ISBN: 0-525-94081-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

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MAGIC HOUR

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

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