A curious tale, by turns sympathetic and aloof, of the humanization of a German mathematician/aristocrat who seeks contact with his own kind after learning he has a terminal disease, from the quirky imagination of Berlin-based American expatriate Dische (Strange Traffic, 1995, etc.). Benedikt Waller von Wallerstein spent his adult life in the single-minded pursuit of the solitron, a theoretical particle that by definition exists forever on its own, until a lethal illness brings him face to face with his mortality. As the last male in his noble line, he naively decides to advertise for a child to adopt as his heir—and is rewarded by the arrival of a wild, disheveled Russian woman and her son, Valerie, who move right in. Not having a clue about how to deal with them, Benedikt is first angry, then resigned, and, when a dotty pensioner shows up looking for work as a housekeeper, he decides to leave Berlin and take all three to his ancestral castle. There, he renews ties with his bedridden grandmother, who takes an interest in the Russians, going so far as to get out of bed for the first time in 20 years—an act that kills her. Benedikt decides to marry Marja to make his adoption more seemly, the fact that she already has a husband notwithstanding. After a much publicized wedding, however, he takes action to get rid of her, finding Marja to be a disruption in his effort to be fatherly to Valerie. But events overtake those plans, and though he loses his wife and son somewhere in the Swiss Alps, all manage to find their way back to Berlin—in time for Valerie's true father to find them. Eccentric doesn't begin to describe this rich, Germanic- flavored saga, but the twists and tangents that clash in mood and purpose finally make it seem more a collection of ingenious pieces than a finished work.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-8050-5357-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1997
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
Cheerfully engaging.
From Australian Moriarty (The Last Anniversary, 2006, etc.), domestic escapism about a woman whose temporary amnesia makes her re-examine what really matters to her.
Alice wakes from what she thinks is a dream, assuming she is a recently married 29-year-old expecting her first child. Actually she is 39, the mother of three and in the middle of an acrimonious custody battle with her soon-to-be ex-husband Nick. She’s fallen off her exercise bike, and the resulting bump on her head has not only erased her memory of the last 10 years but has also taken her psychologically back to a younger, more easygoing self at odds with the woman she gathers she has become. While Alice-at-29 is loving and playful if lacking ambition or self-confidence, Alice-at-39 is a highly efficient if too tightly wound supermom. She is also thin and rich since Nick now heads the company where she remembers him struggling in an entry-level position. Alice-at-29 cannot conceive that she and Nick would no longer be rapturously in love or that she and her adored older sister Elisabeth could be estranged, and she is shocked that her shy mother has married Nick’s bumptious father and taken up salsa dancing. She neither remembers nor recognizes her three children, each given a distinct if slightly too cute personality. Nor does she know what to make of the perfectly nice boyfriend Alice-at-39 has acquired. As memory gradually returns, Alice-at-29 initially misinterprets the scattered images and flashes of emotion, especially those concerning Gina, a woman who evidently caused the rift with Nick. Alice-at-29 assumes Gina was Nick’s mistress, only to discover that Gina was her best friend. Gina died in a freak car accident and in her honor, Alice-at-39 has organized mothers from the kids’ school to bake the largest lemon meringue pie on record. But Alice-at-29 senses that Gina may not have been a completely positive influence. Moriarty handles the two Alice consciousnesses with finesse and also delves into infertility issues through Elizabeth’s diary.
Cheerfully engaging.Pub Date: June 2, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-15718-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Amy Einhorn/Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
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