Cooper (The Matter Is Life, 1991, etc.) relates this meandering tale of two half-sisters in a folksy, dialect-strewn voice that is moralistic—and also pretty dull. In the small town of Yoville, a newly emancipated slave named Josephus Josephus chooses to remain for a spell on the plantation of his former masters, the Krupts, while he plans his next move. While there, he courts a neighboring woman, who then marries a different man but gives birth to Ruth, who Josephus is convinced is his daughter: ``He just watched the child as she grew for signs that she might be his. He saw them and knew she was his child.'' Shortly afterward, the disgusting, drunken Mrs. Krupt commands Josephus to have sex with her and becomes pregnant, eventually giving birth to a daughter named Yinyang. After Yinyang discovers her mother's hidden stash of gold, Josephus steals it and buries half in the ground, then Josephus and Yinyang leave together and he dies shortly afterward, but not before giving her some gold coins. Back in Yoville, Ruth discovers the buried treasure, marries the love of her life, and starts having children. Meanwhile, after a stint in New Orleans living with a woman who showers her with gifts and ``loans'' her to a priest, grown-up Yinyang returns to Yoville. The story flips back and forth between Ruth and Yinyang (and, after Ruth's death, between her daughter Hosanna and Yinyang) with dizzying speed, as if to force home the good girl/bad girl dichotomy. More irritating are the constant references to Satan's feelings about things (``Satan smiled in amusement. `I will be there with some suggestions to make, little one.' '') and the authorial instructions on clean living (``You just watch those Ten Commandments and watch out for people who do not respect and try to do them''). Imitative of but in no way equal to Zora Neale Hurston. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-46785-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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