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PALE MORNING DONE

Name: PALE MORNING DONE
Author: Jeff Hull
ISBN: 1-59228-684-4

by Jeff Hull ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2005

A promising debut: rich in local color and uncontrived dialogue, with a plot that moves like a mountain stream.

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A River Runs Through It meets Deliverance—sort of.

Marshall Tate has none of Lewis Medlock’s macho bluster—he listens to NPR and has been known to drink gin and tonics, after all—but he finds himself in a similar milieu: he’s discovered an exquisitely beautiful corner of the world, and unpleasant locals are bent on making his life there difficult. He has some of Norman MacLean’s pensiveness, too, which is a fitting enough quality for Montana debut novelist Hull, and some of MacLean’s penetrating eye for the landscape as well. Tate has come to his father’s little ranch to pursue a wild hare of an idea: formerly a river guide for well-heeled dude fishermen, he now wants to restore the spread to its former wildness, plant some native grasses, rehabilitate fish-spawning streams. It’s a good place to do the work, for wildness is all around, and biologists have even released wolves nearby—which proves yet another reason for redder-of-neck inhabitants to suspect Marshall and his pals Molly and Alton of being secret agents of the black helicopter crowd. Neighboring land king Bruce Klingman and his son Randy, who, Marshall assumes, “would inherit the Klingman ranch because he had studied his father’s politics and aped them passably,” are certainly suspicious, and they do their best to impede Marshall’s progress and that of the “woofs” alike. Local yahoo Ripley, “sort of a jackass around town,” is another obstacle until, well, he’s tended to in a moment that would do William Golding proud. What’s poor Marshall to do? Mess around with the rancher’s daughter, for one thing, which makes Molly unhappy but sets the ball rolling for a very nicely delivered moment of sweet revenge. In the bargain, perpetual adolescent Marshall eases into a kind of assured maturity, most everyone else gets what they want or deserve, and even the wolves make out okay.

A promising debut: rich in local color and uncontrived dialogue, with a plot that moves like a mountain stream.

Pub Date: June 1, 2005

ISBN: 1-59228-684-4

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Lyons Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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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...

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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

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.