Breezy and memorable, Segundo’s fictionalized memoir details the carefree days of youth as well as the dire consequences of...
The R-rated fictional memoir of a man’s two-year journey from college graduation to incarceration on a rape charge.
In this embellished chronicle, Segundo presents himself as 22, single, frustrated, and unemployed, a recent college grad resigned to desperately fantasizing about storefront mannequins for entertainment. The depressing difficulties in finding gainful employment in his chosen field (sociology) as well as a glaring lack of a love life weighed on this kindhearted if socially awkward dork with a bachelor’s degree and few prospects. After a rather calamitous skiing weekend with womanizing college buddy Dave and female-challenged beekeeper Graham, Segundo finally scored a job at a school for handicapped children. There, head teacher Maura Wood immediately captured his attention and eventually his heart, as detailed in pages of corny musings and explicit sex scenes: “Lost in her timeless rhythm, she ebbed and flowed like a tropical tide.” Segundo gushes, “I washed ashore on her wave.” Once accepted by Maura’s skeptical pregnant friend, Judith, the lovers bonded over the limitations of the “speds” they assisted at school and fell deeper in love; they also attempted to dissuade Graham from romantically pursuing Judith. For all its harmless narrative banter and romantic innocence, the story takes a dark turn: Maura dumped Segundo and he began to date uppity, high-maintenance Sandra, though a rekindling with Maura sparked an accusation of rape and unleashed a torrent of damning legalities. Segundo ended up being convicted as a rapist and sentenced to five to seven years at a minimum-security penitentiary; he served three years and was released on probation. His unsuccessful plight to clear his name demonstrates the imbalanced nature of the U.S. justice system and the panicked torture of being an innocent man at the mercy of it. Chatty, digressive, and flush with opinionated asides, Segundo’s story concludes with some ambiguity as to how much of it is has actually been fictionalized, which only deepens its allure.
Breezy and memorable, Segundo’s fictionalized memoir details the carefree days of youth as well as the dire consequences of a sexual misunderstanding.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9882085-1-3
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Tillerman Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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