First published in 1984, and awarded the Grand Prize for the Novel by Sweden's Literature Foundation, this autobiographical novel tells of the author's immigration to America at the age of 11. In a retrospective narrative 45 years later, Myrdal focuses on the inner workings of the child's mind, particularly during the time between the crossing from Sweden to America and his first months of school in New York City. At a young age, Myrdal was conscious of being separated from other people by his family's money, his parents' reputations (both were world-famous scholars), and his own intelligence. He cultivates that separation by living within his own imagination, favoring science-fiction magazines, history books, and newspapers covering the beginning of WW II over friendships. His relationship with his parents, central to the story, may have had something to do with this. They did not enjoy spending time with him, treated him like a scientific subject for an experiment on conditioning, and often disregarded his feelings (they sent him to distant Syracuse to visit an American family they hardly knew and then forgot to meet his return train). Another way in which Myrdal isolates himself from the outside world is through language. He struggles to perfect his English and fit in with Americans; at the same time, he uses wordplay and linguistic intricacies to sever the lines of communication to the world around him. Finally, a school psychologist assesses that he needs more parental contact to develop normal social skills. A postscript reveals that relations between Myrdal and his parents did not improve: They viewed his depiction of an unhappy childhood in this book and others as libel; he recognized it as the one way in which he could exert power over them. For some, an insightful and detailed investigation of a child's perceptions; for others, a self-indulgent and meandering stroll down a stranger's memory lane.
Pub Date: June 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-884468-00-4
Page Count: 198
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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