Fourth edition of the annual collection, now coming from Norton: 15 inventive and diverse stories, all set in the West and all published in 1990 in a variety of literary magazines. Here, old western myths encounter contemporary realities and human frailties. The best include Gladys Swan's ``The Old Hotel,'' in which Jewel comes of age in her parents' run-down, debt-ridden hotel patronized by only two boarders—Mr. Ferrill, a high-toned drifter, and Viny Trilling, not quite all there. After Ferrill deserts a pregnant Viny, Jewel, in an apt epiphany, sees ``a time when the hotel would be gone without a trace and she'd be out somewhere in the world.'' Ken Smith's ``The Government Man'' is a taut drama where the political and personal converge when FDR, in the 1930's, wants to kill off excess cattle to increase the price of beef (``a hare-brained scheme''), while rustlers, following the government man, want to use the beef to feed families. In Robert Day's ``My Father Swims His Horse At Last,'' a ritual joke between a folk- philosopher father and a son who sells mortgage insurance turns into an affectionate fictional memoir. Other noteworthy pieces: Antonya Nelson's ``The Mud Season,'' about an estranged couple ``fated to continue for a while longer, on a different path'' after the sudden death of their daughter; Ron Tanner's ``Jackpot,'' about three near-crazed people in the desert who hunt for mustangs; and poet Joy Harjo's short ``The Flood,'' a Louise Erdrich-like mystical account: ``When I walk the stairway of water into the abyss, I return as the wife of the watermonster....'' The strongest edition yet: it transcends its regional emphasis by using place to take the measure of loneliness and mortality.
Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1991
ISBN: 0-393-03018-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
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.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
