Browner (whose translations include, most recently, CÇline: A Biography, p. 244) delivers a refreshingly comic and original first novel featuring the obsessive love of a well-to-do New Yorker for the mythical monster he corrupts. Young, rich, and bored with the aimlessness of his life since the death of his heiress wife, Aaron X wanders idly one day into the Museum of Modern Art in Paris to find himself transfixed by an unusual sculpture. The work, entitled Conglomeros, depicts a surreal-looking monster with three gracefully pubescent, humanlike torsos—two male and one female—connected at the neck to one doe- eyed, embryonic head. Captivated by this image, Aaron remembers suddenly that his grandfather once noted actually having seen such a creature in Romania's Carpathian Mountains. Aaron departs for Romania posthaste, soon finds the creature—still as trusting, immaculate, and irresistible as the artist had portrayed it—and smuggles it back to his rural New York estate. As Aaron soon discovers, however, the ageless Conglomeros exhibits a frightening zeal for the most regrettable aspects of modern life. Spurred on by such soul-destroyers as The New York Times and The Twilight Zone, the creature soon tires of its isolated existence and convinces Aaron to introduce it to New York. Within weeks after their move, the overstimulated monster, confined to a wheelchair in its disguise as a disabled old woman, has changed its name to ``Connie'' and run off with an East Village charlatan to head a religious cult. Aaron has learned his lesson—but too late: Innocence once lost is not easily recaptured—and all who have conspired in Connie's corruption must suffer in the end. Bits of Lolita, Frankenstein, and any number of child-care manuals float freely through this savory stew—a captivating modern-day satire by an entertaining new writer.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-679-40879-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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