Urquhart's third novel (after Changing Heaven, not reviewed) is an engrossing multigenerational tale shot through with passages of poetic intensity and beauty. On Raithlin, a small island off the northern Irish coast, in the mid-19th century, a young woman named Mary is changed forever by a romantic, tragic encounter. A sailor, victim of a distant shipwreck, is washed ashore and dies in her arms. The islanders believe that the youth is Mary's demon lover who has sent her away to the spirit realm, leaving only her physical replica. In fact, Mary moves about in a heightened state of dreamy creativity, consumed by shimmering visions of the sailor, the sea, and far-off lands she has never seen. She finally agrees to marry Brian, master of a local school, who loves her for her otherworldliness as much as for her russet-haired beauty. With Brian, Mary finds a measure of contentment, especially after the birth of their son, Liam. In 1846, however, the potato crops fail and the family is faced with starvation. With a gift from their British landlords, they emigrate to Canada on one of the notorious ``coffin ships.'' They survive the wracking journey and settle on scruffy farmland in the Canadian north woods. In the deep forest, the pull of the other world begins to reassert itself, and one day Mary disappears, leaving behind seven-year-old Liam and an infant daughter, Eileen. Several years later, an Algonquin named Exodus Crow appears, bearing Mary's corpse and explaining the abandonment of her family. Once grown, Liam and Eileen move south to settle on the shores of Lake Erie, where Liam realizes his dream of nurturing the land on a flourishing and fertile farm. In an echo of her mother's doomed romance, Eileen falls passionately in love with a fiery Irish patriot. The devastating consequences include a political assassination and the birth of their love child, who must be raised by Liam and his wife. In chronicling one family, Away celebrates the talismanic power of memory and the possibilities inherent in the lyricism and magic that exist just beyond the edges of reality. A novel that is both literary and accessible.
Pub Date: June 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-670-85504-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1994
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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