An engrossing but disjointed tale about familial love.
Four struggling children try to deal with a mentally ill mother in this debut novel.
Jasmine Anderson is a hustler and survivor. Her husband’s death left her with four kids—Molly May, Myron, Joey, and Allie—and little means to support them in Columbus, Ohio. Jasmine is a believer in self-help books and vision boards. Molly May tells readers: “Mom likes to say that we’re a goal-driven family on an upward trajectory.” But her children see no future success with the constant fighting, no father, and little supervision. The family fractures when Allie, the eldest, leaves home; her departure inflames her mother’s illness (“The physical symptoms that began twenty years ago are acute when I’m stressed, and there is nothing more stressful than being abandoned by your child,” Jasmine notes). Then Molly May develops deafness in one ear and Allie suffers an assault and returns home. (The retired janitor who found Allie on a bench “believes she was stabbed and beaten, maybe more.”) After Myron lands in juvenile detention for his part in a youthful stunt that kills a friend, Allie can no longer watch her family implode and becomes the matriarch. She essentially kicks her mother out of a household she no longer wishes to be responsible for (“You girls can raise the boy better than I did,” Jasmine asserts, referring to Myron). With supervision and structure, the children all achieve stable jobs and become the unlikeliest success stories. The narrative then jumps ahead to 2029, when Jasmine is released from prison in California for identity fraud. Armed with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, she must decide if she can confront her children, apologize for the chaos and abandonment, and finally heal her family. In this ambitious and absorbing novel, Knox fully commits to her stark depiction of a dysfunctional family fractured by mental illness. The author delivers a grim, realistic tale with rich details that deftly show Jasmine’s flaws. When Allie returns home after the attack, she is welcomed with an acerbic comment from her mother: “One deaf, one dumb. What did I do to deserve this?” But at times, this family’s intense suffering and arduous journey make for a difficult read. And some readers may find the timelines that jump around and the frequent narrative shifts off-putting.
An engrossing but disjointed tale about familial love.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73308-987-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: AUXmedia
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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