by Jerry McGahan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 10, 1996
First novel spinning a love story around ecological themes, set in the Peruvian Andes and Montana. Pilar is a young Runa Indian woman whose identity is shared with her 23 mothers—or maternal ancestors—and she tells their stories as if to carry her race into the future. One such story is the myth that the great condor flies every morning from the East, bringing the sun. Another tells of the invasion of the Incas, yet another of the conquering Spanish. The present, too, is full of travail, for the Sendero Luminoso, violent left-wing guerrillas, have arrived in Pilar's village. They begin a ruthless purification program, and Pilar is threatened, since her knowledge of the past brands her in some eyes as a sorceress. She flees over the mountains along the ancient Inca Road to the village of Ollantaytambo, where she meets a norteamericano named Arnie Wolcott. A clumsy but likable fellow, Arnie is an expert on grizzlies who has come to Peru to census the population of spectacled bears for his master's thesis. High in the mountains, he and Pilar make love, and Pilar follows Arnie to the US as his wife. With some friends, the two undertake to free a grizzly named Celeste and her cubs from the tortures of university research. Mission accomplished, the two part. But Pilar brings a little money home to Peru and buys a nice plot of land far from the Senderistas. Arnie has settled down some, having loved once, but well, and having done a good deed. Splitting the novel into two sections, one told from Pilar's point of view, the other from Arnie's, is jarring. And, given the high romance of this unlikely pair in the first place, to part them seems arbitrary. Far-fetched, then, though pleasant and diverting.
Pub Date: Oct. 10, 1996
ISBN: 0-87156-354-1
Page Count: 276
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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