The Irish playwright Leonard (the Tony-winning Da; two memoirs, Home Before Night and Out After Dark) turns to fiction with a witty, glitteringly dramatic treatment of the by-now mythic love affair of Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-91), the Irish leader who fired the drive for Home Rule, and English-born Kitty O'Shea. The affair eventually ended Parnell's leadership and shattered the unity of the Irish party in Parliament. Kitty O'Shea married handsome Willie—the vain, weak, and shifty son of a Dublin solicitor who had edged into Parliament from County Clare—through a regrettable impulse, and now, at 35, she feels ``hardly used'' by life. The meeting with tall, gaunt, ailing Parnell (the lion she had not yet netted for a dinner party) is as brief as the swing of a sluice gate—the two adamantine egos are well matched. Leonard's Parnell, who, growled the Irish Secretary, ``cold-bloodedly incited the Irish to peace,'' detests the noisy adoration of ``dear old Ireland'' and has the aristocratic pride of Lucifer ``who chose to fall sooner than serve.'' Kitty, who insists that Parnell carry the generally detested Willie on his coattails because she needs a husband of status, declares, ``Not because I care for him. I care for myself!'' Meanwhile, whether in cool amusement or cold fury, Parnell, the brilliant political tactician, collects thorny victories—and enemies, principally among his most devoted lieutenants. No slouch at tactics herself, Kitty at one point skewers Willie, who finally learns that two of their children are Parnell's, and loses a legacy. There are runnels of scandal, divorce, marriage, and the Irish party ``takes its own life.'' First-class portraiture—from the Grand Old Spider Gladstone to Tim Healy, a ``lover betrayed,'' and, of course, the lovers themselves, brilliantly realized, who labor on through mighty times.
Pub Date: May 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-689-12127-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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