A funny, poignant story of two flawed souls struggling to put themselves back together.
An alcoholic in decline finds redemption–or maybe just more trouble–in the form of a fetching waitress-in-distress in this charming romance.
Thomas Aquinas “Tam” Malonee is fleeing a failed marriage, as well as the police, for stealing a car and some money from his father-in-law. At a Tennessee diner, he meets Madison Monroe, a blonde, trailer-trash siren who takes his order but also has some specials of her own to request. Tam agrees to drive Madison to Florida so she can take her six-year-old daughter away from her abusive ex-husband. A picaresque road trip ensues. Madison drags Tam to her uncle’s funeral, which develops into a brawl between feuding redneck clans. Tam reunites with his father, a physicist who abandoned the family during his childhood, which develops into an armed confrontation at a strip club. In addition, the pair meet more quirky and enchanting–and occasionally menacing–characters, acquire a basset hound, live off Tam’s budding artistic genius as a sidewalk portrait painter and swap through a string of dicey vehicles, ending with a 1973 Plymouth Fury III stenciled with “Purple People Eater” in white letters on a bright purple background. When they finally arrive in the Sunshine State, a hurricane is brewing, along with a far murkier custody battle than Tam had anticipated. Accardi (Dry Sterile Thunder, 2004, etc.) fills this affecting, shaggy-dog journey with sharp characterizations and mordant comic turns. Madison is winsome, but with a bite, and Tam is a great study in alcoholic self-pity, self-loathing and self-deception.
A funny, poignant story of two flawed souls struggling to put themselves back together.Pub Date: March 19, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-595-41783-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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