Meant to be Alice in Wonderland by way of Boogie Nights, the book comes off more like vintage Tarantino performed by HBO’s...
1983 is like, a bummer, man, in this hazy quasi-comedy about sex, blow and what’s next.
No stranger to the unique strain of adolescent nostalgia for California after her similarly themed debut, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, Blau (Drinking Closer to Home, 2011, etc.) goes over the top, sometimes very uncomfortably, with this druggie blast from the past. Set in the Los Angeles glory days of hair, metal and valley porn, the author designs quite the odd duck to center her gray comedy. When we open on shiftless Berkeley college student/remind-us-yet-one-more-time-she’s-Jewish-biracial-Asian—wait, she has a name, it’s Allie Dodgson. Anyway, the girl is not doing so hot. She loaned a bunch of money to her dreamy boyfriend, who promptly broke up with her. To make ends meet, Allie is working in a crappy dress shop in Oakland with her BFF Beth, snorting coke and trying to avoid the antagonistic penis of her masturbatory employer Jonas. Unfortunately for her, tuition and the rent are both due, and Jonas isn’t giving up her paycheck without a fight. In a fit of pique, Allie swoops up a Wonder Bread bag full of high-octane cocaine, and she’s off on her After Hours-esque misadventure. There are a lot of bad decisions, a lot of poorly made decisions and a lot of kooky characters to keep Allie rolling and tumbling. “I want to go back to school next summer,” Allie says. “I want to stay in Berkeley and graduate with honors. I want to return this car to my friend Beth. I don’t want to be a coke-snorting thief.” There’s a bit of lost-girl syndrome as Allie tries to reconnect with her rock-star mother and her absentee father. But tastes will vary—between the paraplegic porn producer and Allie shagging Billy Idol (seriously), most readers will have made up their minds one way or another.
Meant to be Alice in Wonderland by way of Boogie Nights, the book comes off more like vintage Tarantino performed by HBO’s Girls.Pub Date: May 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-219955-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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