Another ensemble piece by entertainment veteran Dart (Beaches, 1985, etc.), combining armed chases with tender embraces and bah- dum-bah humor with cinematic sensibility. Four nearing-50 friends try to age gracefully in the Hollywood Hills, supporting one another in regular Girls' Nights—an opportunity to sit in the Jacuzzi and kvetch with pals. They've come a long way since college (where they met), but every day is still a struggle for women of a certain age. Jan O'Malley is a single mother/soap opera star worrying that her contract won't be renewed, considering plastic surgery, and making time for her adopted son. When a down-on-her-luck college crony, Betty Norell (who was not part of the gang), locates Jan and begs for a job, the two get into an altercation, and crazy Betty shoots Jan. This happens on a Girls' Night, so Jan's pals head to the hospital rather than the hot tub. By her bedside, they reminisce, tell stories, and sort through man, child, and career troubles. Marly Bennet, the white-haired, New Age-y, ex-TV star, relates scenes from her troubled marriage to Billy Mann, late-night TV megacomic and egomaniac. Should she dump him? Rose Schiffman knows what spending time at Mercy Hospital is: Her first husband died of cancer there, and her current spouse is a doctor who supports her floundering screenwriting career. Should she sell out to the establishment and write commercial stuff? Ellen Bass, stressed-out vice president of feature films at Hemisphere Studios, is sick of pandering to the old white boy establishment that mocks her. Should she quit? As always in Dart's books, when the girls are not delivering one-line zingers about Hollywood malaise, they are holding one another compassionately and weeping their way to resolution. The author expertly pushes buttons to activate sentimental tears and shtick-responsive laughs. Like an amiable sitcom, complete with laugh track and schlocky ending.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-316-17334-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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