Fourteen years and three novels after Hearts, Wolitzer picks up precisely where she left off: widowed Linda Reismann, 27, is pulling into Los Angeles in her Mustang; Robin, her bratty adolescent stepdaughter, is asleep on the back seat. Skillfully interweaving a plot recap for those who missed the earlier volume, the author hurtles her characters through time into 1992. Rodney King and Reginald Denny are beaten, stores are destroyed by the riots, Clinton hits the campaign trail. The fact that Linda remains 27 and Robin 13 may startle some readers of the 1980 novel, but both characters are so genuine here that it scarcely matters. Wolitzer (who has also written several YA novels) captures the teenager brilliantly. Walking into a gourmet take-out shop for a snack, Robin finds only vegetable chips: ``They tasted a lot like regular potato chips, and the seltzer wasn't bad either. But what a rip-off.'' Passages such as this also indicate the major conflict that fuels the novel: the discrepancies between wealth and poverty, enchantment and delusion, for which LA's tinsel-town atmosphere provides the perfect setting. Deftly, quietly, characters milk each other emotionally and physically, yet amid it all some desperately and at times foolishly cling to love. Despite an onslaught of difficulties—everything from a car crash and a robbery/murder to a carefully engineered custody threat—Wolitzer guides readers at a slow, even pace, always allowing time for poetic description. Little asides that in some novels interfere with the pace here blend in seamlessly, for example, Linda's memory of a high school friend. Actions and reactions get sentimental at times, and a major plot development is tied up too easily, but the majority of readers will be too caught up in the characters' day-to-day frustrations and accomplishments for such nit-picking. (Literary Guild alternate selection; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: May 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-118007-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Great fun, and with a few poignant moments too.
Nantucket in summer, four chummy couples, romantic intrigue and a possible murder, in the latest from Hilderbrand (A Summer Affair, 2008, etc.).
The book opens with the death of Greg and Tess MacAvoy. Sailing from Nantucket to Martha’s Vineyard for their 12th anniversary, the beloved couple is found drowned, trapped under their boat. Ed Kapenash, Nantucket Chief of Police and one of Greg’s best friends, has to break the news to his wife Andrea, Tess’s cousin. They are joined in mourning by rich, cultured Addison Wheeler; his wife Phoebe, a pill-popping zombie since her twin’s death on 9/11; wild Delilah Drake (in love with Greg); and her stoic husband Jeff. Inseparable for years, the four couples loved and respected each other, vacationed together, watched each other’s children; in fact, they seemed to have an idyllic life of friendship on the island—until the death of Greg and Tess uncovers all their dirty secrets. The toxicology report finds heroin in the bloodstream of sweet, overcautious Tess, a kindergarten teacher and doting mother of twins. Ed also finds five phone calls on Tess’s phone from Addison the morning of the sail. Were the MavAvoys’ deaths an accident or a murder plot gone wrong? Much of the mystery hinges on what happened between Greg, a music teacher at the local high school, and April Peck, a student who several months earlier accused him of sexual misconduct. With a few strings pulled by Ed, Greg’s career was saved, but the strain of the scandal has unforeseen consequences on the surviving friends. In mourning, each feels somehow culpable; slowly they confront together the sordid underbelly of their seemingly respectable lives. If the plot becomes a bit stretched at the end, never mind: Hilderbrand has a master’s touch at characterization, making the novel’s players seem so familiar that the revelation of their secrets is irresistible.
Great fun, and with a few poignant moments too.Pub Date: July 7, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-04389-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2009
Sneering tone and choppy style mar this first novel, set in Sydney, from Australian author Moriarty.
Meet the Kettle sisters: 33-year-old triplets.
Gemma, Cat, and Lynne had the childhood from hell, thanks to their battling parents, and they still haven’t decided what they want to be when they grow up—if they grow up. They haven’t forgiven Mum and Dad and they can’t forget, for example, their sixth birthday party, when their father lit a firecracker and blew his finger off (it was preserved in Formaldehyde as a gruesome memento of the occasion). How ironic: it was his ring finger—an apt symbol of an explosive marriage. Some years later, after their parents’ divorce, the sisters leave home to confront hard truths about life and love. Family secrets and garden-variety troubles are trotted out in no particular order: Mum’s miscarriage. Frail but feisty granny. Unfaithful husbands and useless boyfriends. Happy ending? Oh, why not.
Sneering tone and choppy style mar this first novel, set in Sydney, from Australian author Moriarty.Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-058612-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004
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