bookshelf

UNDER THE SILK COTTON TREE

Name: UNDER THE SILK COTTON TREE
Author: Jean Buffong
ISBN: 1-56656-126-4

by Jean Buffong ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1993

bookshelf

Like one of the roads that follows the winding shore of her native Grenada, Buffong's debut meanders through the present and the past as it tells the story of an island girlhood. Grenada is a quiet place ``where nobody running to go anyway...everything just slow and nice...even in the rain season when God decide to wash away Grenada sins, the sun still be hot, hot''—but tragedy and villainy are also as familiar as those foreign places where the ``people are always running.'' Beginning with the long-anticipated wedding of two popular teachers that's interrupted by the loud ``screech'' of Miss Gracelyn, young Flora tells not only her own story but also the stories of her neighbors living near the silk cotton tree—stories that, this being the island, more often than not soon become common property. Flora recalls how her father left the island many years ago and failed to send money back or even to acknowledge the death of his youngest daughter, Janice, the sister Flora continues to mourn. As for ongoing events, a young neighbor is bewitched by a legendary mermaid and nearly drowns; Flora's friend Sheila moves into the house of a renegade Catholic priest who has been seducing the local young women; her beloved grandmother becomes senile and wanders; a woman drowns in a flooded river despite Flora's warning; Flora herself excels at school; and the wedding interrupted by the suddenly ``possessed'' Miss Gracelyn is completed and joyously celebrated—a real ``fete.'' All of this is taking place against a background of strong religious sentiment, local superstition, and a culture shaped as much by its African origins as by the island's own traditions. A wonderfully evocative portrait of growing up on an island where ``news travels faster than African drums,'' and carnival is ``the whole island together doing things.''

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1993

ISBN: 1-56656-126-4

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Interlink

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

bookshelf

Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

bookshelf

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.