Bacharach’s book is admirable in its aspirations but fails to deliver on most of them.
A satirical modern take on the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.
As unfair as it may seem to use a writer’s own self-deprecating words against him, it’s hard to forget, once you’ve read the acknowledgements page of Bacharach’s (The Bend of the World, 2014) novel, the author’s admission that his agent, after reading the first draft, told him “in the nicest possible way that it didn’t make any goddamn sense.” Perhaps the final version is an improvement over that initial assay, but unfortunately, the book still doesn’t make much sense. Bacharach’s biblically inspired tale weaves together two stories, toggling somewhat confusingly among the late 1980s (or early '90s), the present day, and various times in between. Abbie Mayer, a New York–based architect of some environmentally forward-thinking renown, who, either because he has impregnated his mistress (and been caught by his wife, Sarah) and has been inspired (while attending synagogue) by a religious vision of a deer on a hilltop or simply because he needs to make a fast buck (no pun intended), moves to Pittsburgh and begins to consult for his lesbian sister’s real estate business. Sometime closer to the present day, a young woman named Isabel makes her own move from New York to Pittsburgh to work at a nonprofit called the Future Cities Institute, through which she meets Abbie and Sarah’s son, Isaac, and eventually becomes intertwined with the family, although we are left to guess at a few essential details. One of the book’s key faults is that the author takes great pains to explain some plot points (the details of a soured deal among Abbie, his sister, and their business partners are spelled out in a nearly 40-page-long arbitration-hearing transcript yet nevertheless remain difficult to grasp) and leaves others unexplained altogether (the progress of Isabel’s relationship with her love interest is especially sketchy). What's more, characters and motives often don't ring true, and Bacharach often seems to sacrifice conciseness and clarity for the sake of cleverness. To be fair, the book contains a few interesting story ingredients, but they seem ill-measured and lazily mixed and, like a haphazardly made cake, never seem to quite set.
Bacharach’s book is admirable in its aspirations but fails to deliver on most of them.Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63149-174-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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