With the exception of a totally implausible coincidence around which the plot revolves, this book is well written and...
A woman of a certain age works through a late-in-life crisis by heading for her dream city of Paris in this second novel by Luckett.
Nicole-Marie Handy loved speaking French with her father when she was a child. Nicole used to dig through her parents’ cedar chest when they were out, pulling out the worn blue book of French words and reading them over and over. Later, she would speak phrases she memorized with him, but one day the book disappeared, and Nicole grew up to marry and move on with her life. Now, in her mid-50s, divorced with an off-again/on-again married lover and spurred on by the death of a close friend, she decides to fulfill a lifelong dream and spend a month in Paris. What she finds there changes her life, but it takes time to unravel the mystery of the photo she finds in an old book taken from a carton filled with literature by and about African-Americans. Fortunately for Nicole, she meets a man who can help her trace the photo. Interwoven with Nicole’s story is that of Ruby, a sultry Mississippi beauty who succumbs to love and desire and deserts the stultifying subservience that defines Mississippi during World War II. Tired of the Jim Crow laws that make her a second-class citizen, Ruby dreams of life beyond the drudgery and despair that face her and decides to get out. When Ruby meets a dangerous older musician, Arnett, she makes her break and sets off a series of events that spill over into the lives of many others. Luckett’s loving descriptions of Paris evoke the sights, smells and sounds of the City of Light. Nicole’s story is one with which any woman, regardless of age or skin color, can relate, but Ruby’s tale and the author’s meticulous research into the Paris of the period following WWII is the real star of this novel.
With the exception of a totally implausible coincidence around which the plot revolves, this book is well written and engaging, a celebration of life after 50.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-446-54299-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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