THE SWIMMING POOL

Name: THE SWIMMING POOL
Author: Holly LeCraw
ISBN: 978-0-385-53193-1

by Holly LeCraw ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 6, 2010

Whether open or suppressed, passion rules events, but this is not a murder mystery; instead LeCraw reveals the complex moral...

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LeCraw’s remarkably confident first novel begins seven years after an unsolved murder and explores the ripple effect both of decisions that may have caused the murder and its aftermath.

Cecil McClatchy was away on a business trip when his wife Betsy was murdered in their Atlanta home, but he was clearly a suspect. Months later Cecil died in a car accident and the case has never been solved. Now Cecil’s grown children are spending the summer at the McClatchy summer place on Cape Cod. Daughter Callie has chosen to recover there after the difficult birth of her second child. Callie’s brother Jed has taken a leave from his legal career to stay with her since her husband can only commute from his own career on weekends—an example of LeCraw’s sometimes unconvincing plotting. In the attic Jed finds a bathing suit he knows was not his mother’s but belonged to a Cape neighbor, Marcella Atkinson, on whom he once had an adolescent crush and whose college-age daughter Toni is currently working for Callie as a nanny. Soon Jed is at her doorstep in Connecticut asking why the bathing suit turned up at his house. Marcella, long divorced from her seemingly aloof husband Anthony, confesses that she and Cecil had an affair, that she knows he was innocent of murder because they were together. In fact that very weekend Cecil had told her his decision to stay in his marriage; after Betsy’s death, he made Marcella promise not to acknowledge the affair to protect his children from further pain. Soon Jed and Marcella begin their own secret affair complicated by Toni’s obvious crush on Jed. Meanwhile Callie sinks into dangerous postpartum depression exacerbated by unresolved grief over the loss of her parents. Every character feels guilt or at least regret, some with more reason than others.

Whether open or suppressed, passion rules events, but this is not a murder mystery; instead LeCraw reveals the complex moral and psychological mystery within all relationships.

Pub Date: April 6, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-385-53193-1

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LIFE OF PI

by Yann Martel ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2001

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A fable about the consolatory and strengthening powers of religion flounders about somewhere inside this unconventional coming-of-age tale, which was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Award. The story is told in retrospect by Piscine Molitor Patel (named for a swimming pool, thereafter fortuitously nicknamed “Pi”), years after he was shipwrecked when his parents, who owned a zoo in India, were attempting to emigrate, with their menagerie, to Canada. During 227 days at sea spent in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger (mostly with the latter, which had efficiently slaughtered its fellow beasts), Pi found serenity and courage in his faith: a frequently reiterated amalgam of Muslim, Hindu, and Christian beliefs. The story of his later life, education, and mission rounds out, but does not improve upon, the alternately suspenseful and whimsical account of Pi’s ordeal at sea—which offers the best reason for reading this otherwise preachy and somewhat redundant story of his Life.

Pub Date: June 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-15-100811-6

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE JOY LUCK CLUB

by Amy Tan ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 22, 1989

With lantern-lit tales of old China, a rich humanity, and an acute ear for bicultural tuning, a splendid first novel—one...

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An inordinately moving, electric exploration of two warring cultures fused in love, focused on the lives of four Chinese women—who emigrated, in their youth, at various times, to San Francisco—and their very American 30-ish daughters.

Tan probes the tension of love and often angry bewilderment as the older women watch their daughters "as from another shore," and the daughters struggle to free themselves from maddening threads of arcane obligation. More than the gap between generations, more than the dwindling of old ways, the Chinese mothers most fear that their own hopes and truths—the secret gardens of the spirit that they have cultivated in the very worst of times—will not take root. A Chinese mother's responsibility here is to "give [my daughter] my spirit." The Joy Luck Club, begun in 1939 San Francisco, was a re-creation of the Club founded by Suyuan Woo in a beleaguered Chinese city. There, in the stench of starvation and death, four women told their "good stories," tried their luck with mah-jongg, laughed, and "feasted" on scraps. Should we, thought Suyuan, "wait for death or choose our own happiness?" Now, the Chinese women in America tell their stories (but not to their daughters or to one another): in China, an unwilling bride uses her wits, learns that she is "strong. . .like the wind"; another witnesses the suicide of her mother; and there are tales of terror, humiliation and despair. One recognizes fate but survives. But what of the American daughters—in turn grieved, furious, exasperated, amused ("You can't ever tell a Chinese mother to shut up")? The daughters, in their confessional chapters, have attempted childhood rebellions—like the young chess champion; ever on maternal display, who learned that wiles of the chessboard did not apply when opposing Mother, who had warned her: "Strongest wind cannot be seen." Other daughters—in adulthood, in crises, and drifting or upscale life-styles—tilt with mothers, one of whom wonders: "How can she be her own person? When did I give her up?"

With lantern-lit tales of old China, a rich humanity, and an acute ear for bicultural tuning, a splendid first novel—one that matches the vigor and sensitivity of Maxine Hong Kingston (The Warrior Woman, 1976; China Men, 1980) in her tributes to the abundant heritage of Chinese-Americans.