Mostly painful reminiscences of British life—as offered round the dinner table and out on the porch in a Caribbean setting more vivid than the anecdotes shared there. Grenadian author Buffong (Under the Silk Cotton Tree, 1993) does luminously evoke the close ties among people on Grenada, with the balmy climate and warm sea (always close enough for a swim) contrasting violently with Aunt Sarah's and Uncle Dolphus's tales of life in England. The couple never felt warm there, even in summer, were subjected to crude racial prejudice and endured demeaning jobs, like cleaning latrines, were paid lower wages for the same work whites did, and suffered frequent insults or unprovoked attacks. Though tempted often to leave, the two met and married over there, then stayed on until they were eligible for a pension and had saved enough money to buy a piece of land back home. Now in their 70s, they raise animals and grow vegetables, selling the surplus in town. But the past's pain is still alive and real. Their stories, often interrupted by comments from neighbors and relatives, are recorded by Dorothy, Aunt Sarah's favorite niece, who, intrigued by the elderly couple's experiences abroad, spends most of her time with them. Dorothy, like the other listeners, is fascinated with England, the place where so many islanders go in hopes of a better life. But the tales they hear describe a hard cold place where the neighbors don't greet one another and the ``people didn't laugh at all and when they laugh it never sounded like a laugh and the sun never felt like the `real sun.' '' Not riveting stuff, but the very ordinariness is the appeal—in reminisences that are able to comfort and also sustain families when they get together. A quiet amble down memory lane that instructs as well as entertains—gently, a little.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-7043-4423-8
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Women’s Press/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997
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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