A peek into a peculiarly alluring world of art, fame and mortality.
Hagedorn's fifth (Dream Jungle, 2004, etc.) could be classified as archetypal literary fiction, all post-modern character study rather than a narrative carrying the reader to a happily-ever-after conclusion.
The milieu is the West Village in New York City, and the story opens symbolically with the death of a hot young Hollywood actor. Among the gawkers outside his brownstone is Mimi Smith, a filmmaker with one movie to her credit. Mimi's in limbo, drinking too much, sampling too many drugs, pining for a missing boyfriend. Other characters swirling through Mimi's world include her daughter, Violet, far too young to be skipping school and partying in imitation of her mother. There is also Mimi's brother, Carmelo, a once-reformed druggie and sometime musician, and most provocatively, there is Mimi's downstairs neighbor, the elderly Eleanor Delacroix, a writer of measurable talent mired in grief because of the death of her longtime lover, Yvonne Wilder. There are more deaths to be reckoned with—Mimi and Bobby's parents were assassinated in their native country; their cousin, Agnes, was apparently abused as a sex slave and murdered; and Felix Montoya, a poet, friend and perhaps lover of Delacroix, is dead and buried in Mexico. These lives unfold at fame's periphery, where avant-garde means Mimi earns some notice but little money for her urban horror film, Blood Wedding. Mimi is an interesting literary character, albeit not necessarily sympathetic, at least as it might play in Peoria. Conversely, Delacroix is intriguingly drawn, a lioness in winter, stoked by cocaine and alcohol. Hagedorn writes dialogue without quotation marks, but conversations are easy enough to follow. Well into the book, she marries Mimi's story to Delacroix's with a passive seduction. The novel then morphs into an interview the notoriously publicity-averse Delacroix gives to a literary magazine called The Volga Review.
A peek into a peculiarly alluring world of art, fame and mortality.Pub Date: April 18, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-02257-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2011
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
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
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