Impressive scope and vivid detail don't redeem this violent and misanthropic novel of a killer's journey across the Old West, by the author of Kill Devil Hill (1979). On a Colorado ranch in 1916, the elderly Cat Brules tells his story to a college-age listener. He begins in Hays City, Kans., where in 1867 he has just quit his job and plans to rob a Texas bank with his old friend Pedro. Brules has a night of wild sex with a prostitute named Michelle; returning to her room on the following night, he finds his former boss beating the woman. Brules kills him and must flee Hays City with Michelle. After traveling several days with little food or water, they cross paths with Pedro and decide to follow his trail markings southward. Comanches soon capture Brules and Michelle, torturing him and roasting her alive. Brules shoots his way out of the camp, only to find Pedro's remains further down the trail. He begins an Indian-killing spree to avenge his two friends' deaths, but after a Shoshone woman named Wild Rose nurses him back to health following a grizzly bear attack, his opinion of Native Americans changes. Brules and Wild Rose marry, have a daughter, and build a cabin. After a horse tramples his wife to death, Brules gives their child to the care of the Shoshone and lives the rest of his life in solitude. Many unnecessary digressions make this novel far too long. Its violence, moreover, is off-putting: Combs clearly intends Brules's hatred of Indians to reflect Old West attitudes, but the fugitive's racism becomes grating over the course of 500 pages; the 100 pages of domestic bliss following his marriage to Wild Rose cannot change the protagonist's brutal image. The bloodshed and bravado may thrill some shoot-'em-up enthusiasts, but this story is as flat as the western desert. (Author tour)
Pub Date: June 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-31195-8
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
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