To all who felt that From Here to Eternity, with all its crudities, nonetheless showed promise in a newcomer, Some Came Running, will be a sharp disappointment. To those who felt it was overpraised, overwritten, nihilistic in its philosophy, this second book is more — much more — of the same. To this reader, who felt that the disputed Peyton Place had moments of good writing and an overall pace of good story telling, marred by dependence on sexual excesses and overloaded with the seven deadly sins concentrated in one New England town — Some Came Running makes Peyton Place a Sunday School story. The seven deadly sins are magnified, distorted, perverted and multiplied — and presented with extremes of vulgarity, laced with four letter words. It has nothing — repeat nothing — to recommend it. The story, if one can extract any story from it, begins with a returned veteran, back in his home town, determined to take revenge on his brother, and show up the town and its inhabitants. He links his fortunes with a group of drifters, male and female — not a credible person in the lot. He is attracted to a young woman, whose chief shame is that she is still a virgin — and can't seem to take the hurdle. But his goal is to sleep with her, not to marry her. When he fails — he marries the town whore. The two reasonably normal and likable people in the whole cast of characters turn out to be obsessed by pornographic pictures! In fact pornography and depraved forms of sexual expression obsess everyone, including — quite obviously — the author. It is a distasteful and unrelievedly boring orgy in the manure pile. And it is so badly written that at no moment in its ghastly length does Jones hold out hope that he is likely to write another creditable book.
Pub Date: June 15, 1957
ISBN: 0440182611
Page Count: 1195
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1957
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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