An engaging tale about a singular friendship that gives voice to the struggles of the sightless.
A friendship reveals the daily challenges faced by the blind and leads to a long relationship in this debut autobiographical novel.
John Kwan suffers blindness and abandonment when very young yet he carries “on with his life with great dignity and optimism.” The plight of the sightless (John’s preferred term) is especially difficult in Hong Kong, as the fast-paced society lacks accommodations for this group. His life consists of “trying to survive from one day to the next, and often at the mercy of other people.” Therefore, when a young man named James meets John at La Salle College in Hong Kong in 1962, he is intrigued that a sightless student attends a regular school. Lacking volumes for the sightless, John manually transcribes his own Braille textbooks from someone reading aloud. This is time consuming and limits his ability to study since Braille only works with English and is impractical with more technical subjects like chemistry and math. By nature a compassionate person, James helps him on Saturdays until he leaves for the University of Hawaii in 1965 and John starts a job working as a phone operator. Inspired by their friendship, James becomes a retinal specialist. John achieves his own celebrity by publishing an acclaimed memoir, Diary of a Blind Orphan. When they reunite 25 years later, James sees the change in his friend from “the lonely, struggling young orphan he had been” to an “accomplished family man.” In Hung’s engrossing novel, the two men’s vivid parallel journeys prove that both the sighted and sightless encounter problems but have the means to achieve happiness. The story excels when it insightfully points out abilities many readers take for granted. For instance, the author skillfully contrasts the ease of learning the periodic table when students can actually see the relationships between elements with the daunting task of memorizing the data from verbal recitations. The rambling tangents about other classmates are unnecessary and will distract the audience from being drawn into the intriguing hurdles and victories of John’s life that effectively show great strength of character.
An engaging tale about a singular friendship that gives voice to the struggles of the sightless.Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-58603-8
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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