Those at center stage in Dart's fifth novel (I'll Be There, 1991, etc.) are all L.A. types and members of a very special therapy group, presided over by a psychologist named Barbara Singer. As Barbara explains: ``It's for families whose babies are the result of the new technologies and arrangements, like open adoption, or insemination.'' These seekers into nongenetic family values include Rick Reisman, a famous director pushing 50 who likes his women bimbotic and between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m. only. But the sudden death of his best friend forces Rick to face the emptiness that is his life, leading to his decision to adopt the baby of a pregnant teenager from Kansas. At his right in the therapy circle are Shelly Milton and Ruthie Zimmerman, a team of comedy writers who've never had sex (Shelly's gay) but who have a son, via a test tube. The only trouble is, Shelly's HIV positive. Next comes Judith, who—despairing of ever finding a decent guy- -has made two trips to a sperm bank, resulting in two daughters. And finally there are the De Nardos, who don't always sit together because Mitch has betrayed Lainie by consorting with the surrogate mother of their child, even though they'd all agreed that the woman would disappear as soon as she handed over the baby: VoilÖ!, the kinds of troubles that might make any therapist drool. But Dr. Barbara is not so crass. She helps them all sort out their problems (in not too surprising ways), then cuts them loose to raise their brave new broods. Dart, a former TV comedy writer herself, knows her way around a punch line, not to mention Hollywood. So not to worry if the split focus makes it hard for readers to bond with several of the characters: it's still entertaining, trendy, and seeping with baby lust.
Pub Date: Oct. 8, 1992
ISBN: 0-316-17332-0
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
Not one of Moriarty's best outings.
Relying less on comedy or edginess than in previous novels (Big Little Lies, 2014, etc.), Moriarty explores the social and psychological repercussions of a barbecue in Sydney gone terribly awry.
What happened emerges slowly through glimpses of characters coping—or not coping—weeks after the event intercut with an unfolding chronicle of the actual barbecue day. Both past and present are seen through the eyes of those remembering, who have been affected very differently by the events. Leading up to the barbecue, Erika and her husband, Oliver, accountants whose buttoned-up personalities compensate for miserable upbringings (in Erika’s case by a hoarder and in Oliver’s by alcoholics), have invited Erika’s childhood friend Clementine, a cellist preparing for an important audition, her husband, Sam, and two small children, 2-year-old Ruby and 5-year-old Holly, for afternoon tea and are nervously planning to ask Clementine to donate eggs to help them have a baby. Oliver is understandably upset when Erika accepts a spur-of-the-moment invitation from their wealthy, very sociable neighbor, Vid, to bring everyone over to his backyard for a barbecue. But Clementine, who was instinctively dreading Erika’s tea, jumps at the chance for a lively afternoon with Vid, his sexy wife, Tiffany, and their brainy 10-year-old daughter, Dakota. While Dakota watches the smaller girls, the adults proceed to get mildly sloshed. Then Erika, drunk for the first time in her life, screams, and a child ends up in a life-threatening situation. The suspicion and guilt the adults and even children secretly feel in the aftermath cause rifts and secrets to surface within the three marriages and within Erika and Clementine’s friendship. The setup here is reminiscent of fellow Australian novelist Christos Tsiokas’ The Slap (2008), but while Tsiokas uses a minor incident to propel his corrosive examination of middle-class lives, Moriarty’s characters resolve their issues too neatly and with too much comforting ease.
Not one of Moriarty's best outings.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-06979-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
No one does psychological terror better than King. Another spine-tingling pleasure for his fans.
In his second novel of 2014 (the other being Mr. Mercedes), veteran yarn spinner King continues to point out the unspeakably spooky weirdness that lies on the fringes of ordinary life.
Think of two central meanings of the title—a religious awakening and bringing someone back to life—and you’ll have King’s latest in a nuthouse. Beg pardon, nutshell, though of course it’s madness that motivates all his most memorable characters. In this instance, a preacher arrives in a small New England town—always a small New England town—with an attractive wife and small child. Soon enough, bad things happen: “The woman had a dripping bundle clasped to her breast with one arm. One arm was all Patsy Jacobs could use, because the other had been torn off at the elbow.” And soon enough, the good reverend, broken by life, is off to other things, while our protagonist drinks deep of the choppy waters of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. “My belief had ended,” Jamie Morton says, simply—that is, until Rev. Jacobs turns up in his life again, after having spent time at the horrifying North Carolina amusement park that is Joyland (for which see King’s 2013 novel of the same name) and mastered not just the carney’s trade, but also the mysterious workings of “secret electricity.” Well, as Victor Frankenstein learned, electricity can sometimes get away from a fellow, and though young Jamie pleads with the bereaved pastor to get himself back on the good foot (“The newspapers would call you Josef Mengele.” “Does anyone call a neurosurgeon Josef Mengele just because he loses some of his patients?”), once it sets to crackling, the secret electricity can’t be put back into the bottle. Faith healing run amok: It’s a theme that’s exercised King since Carrie, and though this latest is less outright scary and more talky than that early touchstone, it compares well.
No one does psychological terror better than King. Another spine-tingling pleasure for his fans.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7038-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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