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THE HEALER

Name: THE HEALER
Author: Greg Hollingshead
ISBN: 0-06-019227-5

by Greg Hollingshead ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 1999

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Canadian Hollingshead (stories: The Roaring Girl, 1997) goes soft and mushy on us with this first novel about a wounded man’s search for the healing touch. —With Caroline Troyer I didn—t know what I was getting into.— That’s how Tim Wakelin sees it, with hindsight. Catherine is a healer, a small-town girl whose reputation for miraculous cures has spread across Canada by word of mouth, until it makes its way to the offices of the national women’s magazine that Tim writes for. His editors are intrigued, so much so that they give him carte blanche on the assignment: 3,000 to 4,000 words, however he wants to approach it, with as much time as he needs to get the job done. So off goes Tim, straight from the big city to Grant, the backwoods hamlet where Caroline lives with her parents. Since her father’s in real estate, and since Caroline works in his office, Tim pretends to be looking for a cabin in the woods to call his own. Naturally, Caroline is only too happy to show him properties, but as the charade proceeds, Tim quickly realizes two things:(1) she’s no fake, and (2) he needs her. Having recently lost his wife, Tim remains racked by grief, barely able to function. So he does indeed move into a cabin, and abandons writing his article—only to get lost in the woods. Now he really needs to be rescued, and guess who saves him? The ending’s predictable, as with all morality tales, and the lushness of Hollingshead’s prose can be exasperating (—How could she describe to Wakelin or anyone something that could not be contained by her understanding when it was not present, and when it was present could not be contained even by her body?—). But here, in the New Age, we—d rather be healed than coherent. A sloppy, sentimental mess. Ought to be read with latex gloves.

Pub Date: Jan. 10, 1999

ISBN: 0-06-019227-5

Page Count: 320

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
BEDLAM
by Greg Hollingshead

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ROARING GIRL
by Greg Hollingshead

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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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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.