Canadian Humphreys debuts with the story of two women pilots who try, in August 1933, to break a record by staying aloft for 25 days—in a novel with plenty of period interest but less depth—or height—of psychology and character than could be wished. Famous Grace O—Gorman, known as —Air Ace Grace,— sets out to break the in-air record now held by her over-the-hill husband Jack—who’s not happy to see his wife trying to grab the last record he—ll ever set. But Grace pushes ahead, and, when her intended copilot breaks her wrist, takes on the younger and less-experienced Willa Briggs (Grace is 33, Willa 23).Up they go in a Moth DH60T, a one-engine biplane with wire struts and fabric skin, to begin 25 days of 10-minute circles over the neighborhoods, docks, and waters of Toronto. Once they—re up, Humphreys offers much that’s of considerable interest—how the women refuel in the air, get food (both from a plane flown by the not-quite-to-be-trusted Jack), how they stay clean, go to the bathroom, communicate, keep from falling asleep. But there’s unquestionably a sameness about things—and the book turns to one complication and another for its density: on the ground is 12-year-old Maddy Stewart, whose infatuation for the famous flier is almost boundless—even to the point of her imagining Grace to be her real mother, while her actual parents(Jewish mother a fortuneteller, nostalgic Scots father the operator of a merry- go-round)make their way through the homely, money-pinched days of a Depression August—and feel the wrath of early Nazis, members of —the Swastika Club,— who maraud when it suits them—as it does after Maddy’s prize-fighting uncle, Simon Kahane, wins over a boxer who’s German. Everything about the airplane—with its 40-gallon gas tank and top speed of 80 mph—is marvelously done, as are the locales of long-ago Toronto, but the tales and characters that keep the rest going just don—t hold their altitude, declining toward the tones of a YA.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-5957-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
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
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
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