A sometimes provoking meditation on the elusiveness of genius and desire that’s also, all too often, no more illuminating...
A retelling of the love story between Robert and Clara Schumann that owes less to The Barretts of Wimpole Street than to Raging Bull.
At curtain’s rise, the dying composer, committed to a mental asylum after throwing himself into the Rhine, is looking back over the ruins of his life. A survey of the facts reveals a familiar story—Romantic artist with no financial prospects woos and wins prodigiously talented bride away from autocratic father before going on to his own well-remembered success—which Landis (Lying in Bed, 1995) updates by brushing off the powdered sugar. Schumann often did behave as dissolutely as the outraged Friedrich Wieck claimed. He scattered his love broadcast, even after he’d met the nine-year-old Clara and become her father’s live-in piano pupil. And, mainly because his wife, not he, enjoyed a career as a virtuoso, he never won the public acclaim accorded his contemporaries Paganini, Chopin, Mendelssohn, or Liszt (all of whom make important appearances here) or his protégé Brahms (the obligatory third party, hopelessly but platonically in love with Clara, in any fictional treatment of the couple). Although Landis paints a harrowing picture of Schumann’s final disintegration, however, his determination to paint his musical world in such detail prevents him from ever focusing on the composer at work, or, more damagingly, from creating a convincing romance between him and Clara: He marches dutifully through each new stage of their intoxicatingly progressive intimacy without ever earning the changes he chronicles. And Landis’s incessant factual footnotes on everything from the Sacher Torte to the Third Reich, presumably intended as postmodern thumbs in the eye of Romantic biography, come across as pedestrian and sappy.
A sometimes provoking meditation on the elusiveness of genius and desire that’s also, all too often, no more illuminating than a late-night rerun of Song of Love minus Paul Henreid, Katharine Hepburn, and Robert Walker. (Author tour)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-100453-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Nerve-wracking suspense leavened with romance and spiced with sex: another hit for the prolific Roberts (Blue Smoke, 2005,...
Murder mixes with anguish in steamy Savannah.
FBI-trained hostage negotiator Phoebe MacNamara is a lieutenant in the Savannah police department. Ever since Phoebe and her family were held hostage when she was 12, her mother has been agoraphobic, and Phoebe and her brother Carter still bear the psychological scars, but Phoebe’s used the memory to hone her skills. While talking a suicidal bartender off a ledge, she meets his boss, Duncan Swift. The charming millionaire coaxes her into meeting for a drink, and their relationship slowly deepens. But life takes a turn for the worse when a misogynist cop botches a hostage situation. Suspended, he blames Phoebe and retaliates by viciously attacking her in the precinct house stairwell. He loses his job, but his father’s connections keep him out of jail. Phoebe is physically and mentally injured, but her family and her blossoming relationship with Duncan help her cope until a dangerous pattern develops: A strange man keeps crossing her path. Dead animals begin appearing on her doorstep. A hostage taker is shot after she talks him into surrendering. Her ex-husband is brutally murdered by the mystery man, who phones her with sadistic threats. Is it the spiteful disgraced cop or someone from her past? Phoebe must identify the killer before he can carry out his final outrage.
Nerve-wracking suspense leavened with romance and spiced with sex: another hit for the prolific Roberts (Blue Smoke, 2005, etc.).Pub Date: July 10, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-399-15434-8
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2007
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