Merrill’s poems read like so many distillations of life. Placed end to end, as they are here, they form a veritable...
This fat collection, skinned of notes, variations, or intrusive commentary, shows Merrill to be the most astonishing American poet since Wallace Stevens. Many of the volumes presented here in their entirety have gone out of print, and Merrill’s Selected Poems (1982) was only a slim sample of his genius. At the center of Merrill’s poetry is his voice, acrobatic and inimitable: To love Merrill is to love a tone, at once aloof and intimate, a kind of colloquial raised to the second power. Although he is often described as a confessional poet, his autobiographies, full of winks and seemingly private detail, are not burdened by catharsis. This is in part because Merrill is a comic and erotic poet, and his revelations do not presume a looming fate but come of chance weavings, of an ability to tease significance and pattern from apparently ordinary events and objects (a prismatic paperweight, Roman graffito, ginger beef). In his best poems Merrill finds ways to surprise himself, to clinch a long metaphoric conceit or twist himself free from the same (in “The Black Mesa” he ventriloquizes the hill, and concludes plaintively, “Grain by grain / Dust of my dust, when will it all be plain?”). He was also a brilliant rhymist and experimental poet, and his typographical adventures (with cross-outs, caps, elisions, and asterisks) make his pages as lively as any Shandian romp. But with all the wit and breezy conversation there is a tight, formidably intelligent logic to all of the verse; the son et lumière is carefully orchestrated, each glint and dazzle in its proper place.
Merrill’s poems read like so many distillations of life. Placed end to end, as they are here, they form a veritable metropolis of the soul.Pub Date: March 3, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-41139-9
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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