An amiable first novel that managesthrough an unobtrusive and extraordinarily controlled narrative voiceto breathe new life into the most standard coming-of-age plot. Charlie, the narrator, begins his story at his own adolescence (he's 15), a stage of life that he bears with a good grace in spite of its enormities. Abandoned by his father shortly after he was born, Charlie has been raised by a mother whose inherent decency and natural affection for him are overwhelmed by her own desolation and despair. After a poor attempt at suicide, she's hospitalized, and Charlie is put in the temporary care of her best friend, the 26-year-old Jolene, who rapidly falls in love with the boy and seduces him. The affair is still in full force when Charlie's mother returns home, and he is suddenly back living with her. Shortly thereafter, however, Jolene disappears without a word and is not heard from again for about five years. By this time, Charlie, now living outside Philadelphia, has drifted into the cynical ennui of the frustrated romantic: ``I was suddenly more depressed than I'd been in a long time...nothing was turning out like I'd imagined. Nothing in the store where I worked mattered to me. And I tried to think of something that did matter, but there was nothing....`This is my life,' I said, `and it is not very interesting.' '' Then a friend named Angel convinces Charlie that he needs to confront Jolene to get over her, and so the two set off cross-country to San Francisco to track her down. Charlie's final discovery and ultimate resolution are predictable and traditionalbut utterly convincing for all that. Spatz has no real surprises in store, but, instead, wisely concentrates on the niceties of description and characterization rather than plot. What we are left with finally is a marvelously quiet evocation (as opposed to narration) of a young man's awakening. Simple, precise, and rewarding work, nicely understated and free from contrivance.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-56512-037-X
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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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