A moody, finely textured literary work.
Debut novelist Norman tells the story of a couple who attempt to make a home in a town with a dark history.
The independently wealthy Delano “Del” Grainger lives outside a Canadian prairie town called Edgeworthy, on land that he also rents out to a neighboring farmer. He resides there with his partner, Ivy, although the two have been having relationship troubles of late. Strange things have been happening in the area, as well; for example, a mysterious, large hunting dog, which seems to have come from nowhere, is stalking around the area, and Del’s one true local friend, English transplant Peter Fawcett, recently hanged himself. The death causes Del to question how much he really knows about the town where he lives—a place where “the locals…always asked for but did not easily disclose personal information.” At an auction of Peter’s things—his wife is selling their place and returning to Great Britain—Del finally meets the well-to-do farmer who rents his fields, a giant of a man named Walter Stevens. Walter tells the story of Del’s land, which was long the property of the local Romanoff family—and its scion, the unstable Hunter Romanoff, has sworn to get it back. Del comes to realize that Edgeworthy has secrets that he may not be able to crack. Norman’s prose is deceptively simple in style, painting the subtleties of Edgeworthy and its people in direct, muscular language. He particularly excels at dialogue: “You’ll like him,” one character says to describe another, “eventually. Most people do. Men, anyway.” It’s an intriguing take on the genre of the small-town novel, in which a brooding, silent figure is both the protagonist and a newcomer; indeed, the ways in which Norman shows these qualities to be weaknesses are surprising. Readers will experience a ghostly pleasure in watching Del move around the cold prairie locale in this slow-paced narrative, seeking answers to questions that are, in large part, about himself.
A moody, finely textured literary work.Pub Date: March 20, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-09-096862-3
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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