The Pulitzer Prize winner- with his memorable Tales of the South Pacific — is not an author to be passed over lightly. Nor does his new book belie his claim to a rare gift of yarn spinning and writing vigorous, unhackneyed prose. But- and it is a big but- the enthusiasts of the earlier book will find little that captures that appeal in this new book. He has done, what so many young authors seem to need to do, analyzed the painful growing pains of adolescence almost ad nauseam. To be sure, Michener is a gifted story teller, and his new book has the pace and drama only too often absent. But basically, it is a long-spun story of youth growing up. David Harper has a unique background. He was brought up in a Poor Farm, where his aunt, who grudgingly supported him, held a job, and pinched pennies for her own future security. David had no self-consciousness or shame about his domestic background. In fact, he loved the old men whose idol he was; for them, he lived the potential futures they had missed. And for most readers this will be the memorable part of the book. One is taken into the life stream of the poorhouse- and, extraordinarily enough, Michener has succeeded in doing this without descending to maudlin sentimentality. Then David gets another chance, a step up, which leads to a second escape, and the lure of the stage, although only the itinerant stage of the Chautauqua. He's had two summers schooling in the hard school of an amusement park, where it is assumed that the operators will make their lagniappe on the side, by some crookedness or other. Then he has a glimpse of a cleaner, straighter world, before he is caught in the abortive passion of his thwarted love for Mona, and the intricacies of the Chautauqua life. Schooling- college- an urge to make his own road to literary success- provide a thread of purpose through the often sordid by-paths of his summer money-making ventures, and his explorations into sultry passion. There are unpalatable bits- and others in clearcut drama that balance them off. But the book seems overlong in its exploration of the intricacies of adolescence and growing up, a singularly devious route to maturity. A book to assess for a particular market, rather than to accept on the author's earlier achievement.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1949
ISBN: 0345483057
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1948
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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