English writer Elliott, a necromancer who dangles metaphysical concepts of Time, Love, and the Divine plus other headachy abstractions, sets her latest morality playground in the ancient city of Jerusalem—a cat's cradle of invisible lines ``ever- shifting between faith and non-faith and wrong faith, past and present, fantasy and the impossibility of truth.'' As in Elliott's Dr. Gruber's Daughter (1988), events and characters circle around a boardinghouse—here, that of Eugenia Muna, for whom Time is a loop (Mohammed on his flying fanciful steed was a lovely sight; Proust's diet was irritating; and Freud was on for a brief visit) and who cooks (like Countess Olga in Gruber) awful offal, but she will leave earth's carrion, at the close, to cook a sacred carp, which, it is said, harbors souls. Among the pilgrims of various stripe: bright-haired Daisy, for whom the richness of the city is ``like someone with a temperature''; crane-limbed Thomas Curtis, following the path of a 17th-century skeptic who ``fell into faith''; the Reverend Pooley, occasional aesthete and Anglican; and, in the garden, ``Miss Mary'' (Mary/Isis/Demeter—well, you get the idea). At Magdalene's brothel/cafe three friends meet: Rabbi Solomon; Hamil the minor imam; and Fedor, the man-without-a-past and adorer of Eugenia, his shelter and home. Meanwhile, two unhappy travelers to Jerusalem, set to rescue Thomas and Daisy respectively, are in hellish transit—in bleak and deadly places. On earth there are storms and rumors of more wars, a Crucifixion and a Birth. Lovers find one another, and love, as always, is ringed with hope, among old stones, a ``real world of telegrams and anger,'' and gates through which three Messiahs (probably one anyway, says Eugenia) may enter. A lavishly allusive narrative that entertains tantalizing possibility, identity switches, and brightly chattering heads. Admirers of Elliott's teasing wit and wisdom will find more here.
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1993
ISBN: 0-340-57115-2
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
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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