A fresh, fearless voice takes no prisoners.
A U.S. debut by British author Edwards-Jones skewers a provincial ex-pat community toughing it out amid the sensuous wilds of Tuscany.
For five years, 40-something Belinda Smith has owned and operated a fairly high-end B&B in the rarefied Tuscan valley of Val di Santa Caterina, near the town of Poggibonsi. A snobbish, petty divorcée from the “dull dormitory town” of Tilling, England, which she fled upon discovering her husband in bed with a neighbor, Belinda prides herself on her thoroughly affected Italian way of life. She spies on her ex-pat neighbors from her terrace perch, mangles Italian phrases, abuses the help as well as her small, neat daughter, Mary, 20, who has been fired from her London job and is spending the summer helping Mum for the busy tourist season. Belinda, in truth, is a misanthrope, can’t stand children or smokers anywhere near her place, weeds out the riff-raff by the nature of their Internet queries, steams labels off jam jars to deceive her guests, and spends most of her day drinking gallons of wine at the local watering-hole with fellow sodden ex-pats such as Manchester ladies’ underwear manufacturer Derek, his wife Barbara and alcohol-fueled novelist Howard Oxford, who has suffered writer’s block since his bestseller in the ’80s. She also offers entries from her chirpy diary and corny recipes from “Casa Mia.” When the neighboring Casa Padronale is purchased by an American, no less, Belinda instantly switches into battle action to subvert any attempt at a rival B&B. Owner Lauren, it turns out, made her money in hostile takeovers on Wall Street, and she chews up Belinda like a stick of gum—all while her handsome Yalie son, Kyle, courts the modest and dutiful Mary. Edwards-Jones has fashioned a near-bloody satirical stab at the sentimental Under the Tuscan Sun set, both American and English—with a result quite winning.
A fresh, fearless voice takes no prisoners.Pub Date: April 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-345-47880-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2005
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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