Ambitious and well written, but way over the top.
An overwrought first novel, in which a young wife and mother encounters dust storms and despair in Depression-era Colorado.
Bena Jonssen and her husband, a physician, are moving to the small town of Pueblo with their seven-week-old son because back at the private clinic where he worked in Rochester, Minnesota, Dr. Ted Jonssen refused to give morphine to a woman who proved to be the mayor’s daughter. Or maybe her accusation that he molested her was true: the Jonssen marriage is already fraught with Bena’s knowledge of Ted’s infidelities. The action gets even more unpleasant in Pueblo, where the Jonssens’ babysitter matter-of-factly displays cigarette burns inflicted by her mother—and in an alley, Bena finds a pregnant prostitute sucking meat juices from butcher-shop paper. The local elite, subjects of Bena’s articles in The Pueblo Chieftain, also harbor nasty secrets. The Mineral Palace, built to promote Colorado’s mining wealth but now crumbling away on the outskirts, serves as an apt (albeit crushingly obvious) metaphor for this place of failed dreams and moral rot. To her credit, Julavits looks beyond her personal experiences for fictional material, but her reach exceeds her grasp. Everything is too studied, and none of the emotions rings quite true, not even Bena’s concern for her baby, who is alarmingly unresponsive to the world around him. The atmosphere is so bleak from the beginning that the increasingly grim developments become almost comical, though no one will be laughing at two horrific murders involving children or sordid revelations of sexual abuse and intra-family violence. Even the mysterious cowboy who attracts Bena ultimately commits a violent act, which is as implausible as the anachronistic talk at the Chieftain about newspapers “now competing with movies, books, and radio” as entertainment. It’s all too much; without the emotional anchor of characters to care about, the apocalyptic tone Julavits cultivates seems more affected than earned.
Ambitious and well written, but way over the top.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2000
ISBN: 0-399-14622-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
