Memory, contrition, love and loss all permeate this thoughtful contemplation on the generation of radical adolescents that...
The spectacular rise and dizzying fall of a legendary Spanish desperado.
Memory, contrition, love and loss all permeate this thoughtful contemplation on the generation of radical adolescents that emerged in Spain in its post-Franco years. With an autobiographical air, Cercas (The Anatomy of a Moment, 2011, etc.) crafts a vibrant yet realistic portrait of two teenage boys who find themselves in very different circumstances in adulthood. The voice of the novel comes from Ignacio Cañas, a retired criminal defense lawyer who is being interviewed by an unnamed journalist about his early relationship with a charismatic criminal, Antonio Gamallo, who is known to Spain as “El Zarco.” In the book’s first half, we learn how the bookish, fainthearted Cañas falls in with the blue-eyed Zarco and his exotic female companion, Tere, in the late 1970s. Their deal is based around a simple bargain: “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” The drug-fueled, rebellious trio soon graduates from burglary to robbing banks. When Cañas is freed by a sympathetic police officer named Inspector Cuenca, it sets him on a different path than his felonious friends. A quarter-century later, Tere reappears in his office with María Vela, Zarco’s girlfriend, with a plea for Cañas to lead the outlaw’s defense. It’s a compelling, drawn-out story with rich period detail and emotional depth. The first half has the flavor of Jim Carroll’s post-punk autobiographical novels, while the chronicle of Zarco’s criminal career recalls the many books and films about French gangster Jacques Mesrine. It’s also hard not to feel the swirl of emotions experienced by Cañas as he wrestles with his feelings about his childhood friend and the long attraction he's held for Tere, whose role in keeping Zarco’s secrets leaves her largely at arm’s length from the rest of the world. It’s unusual for a story about popular folklore to be so grounded, but Cercas navigates this difficult maneuver with grace. A rewarding and complex novel about finding the man behind the myths.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62040-325-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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