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CAREER IN C MAJOR AND OTHER FICTION

Name: CAREER IN C MAJOR AND OTHER FICTION
Author: James M. Cain
ISBN: 0070095930

by James M. Cain edited by Roy Hoopes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1986

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Dedicated to revealing and preserving the human side of one of the preeminent tough guy writers of the 1930's, this volume brings together humorous short stories, satiric playlets, but only one work of distinctive (if very modest) quality: the comic novella Career in C Major, which originally appeared in hard-cover in 1943, then in a 1944 collection (Three of a Kind)—but was first sold to the movies. Made first as Wife, Husband and Friend (1939) and a decade later as Everybody Does It, the charming story involves a stage-struck wife who is content enough putting up with her husband's lack of success—but can't deal with his out-of-the-blue triumphs as a singer. Elsewhere, in labored sendups of politicians (The Governor, The Commissioners, etc.) and in Runyonesque tales of Hollywood comebacks and carnival hustlers, the comedy is dated, usually limp, only faintly amusing at best. In contrast to this work of the 1930's, however (much of it published in Redbook), The Visitor—written in 1961, published in Esquire—is briefer, crisper, less effortful: all about what happens when a man wakes one morning to find a tiger by his bed. Very minor work by a minor master, then, more for Cain scholars than general readers—with solid introductory materials by Cain biographer Roy Hoopes.

Pub Date: June 1, 1986

ISBN: 0070095930

Page Count: 287

Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Review Posted Online: March 22, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1986

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
A WATERGATE TAPE
by Roy Hoopes

- BOOK REVIEW
WHEN THE STARS WENT TO WAR
by Roy Hoopes

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BABY IN THE ICEBOX
by James M. Cain edited by Roy Hoopes

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.