An ordinary woman and her family face extreme challenges, putting this one in contention for wide readership—and yet those...
The life of a surviving victim converges with that of her teenaged assailant: a story from award-winning Canadian author Barfoot that’s strongest at its start.
Isla, at 49, finally feels secure in a happy second marriage and has hopes for her troubled grown children. Then she walks in on a robbery and is shot by Roddy, the panicked teenager. These facts emerge brokenly but effectively as Isla comes to in the hospital, paralyzed. At the same time, Roddy is fleeing, his thoughts revealing more confusion than badness. His relief, when he is captured, approaches joy. Barfoot (Duet For Three, 1986, not reviewed), whose ninth novel (but only second US publication) this is, is masterful at entering the consciousness of each: Isla’s flickering thoughts, for example, her wittiness, her realistic and not always reasonable anger. Roddy, 17, comes across less as a monster than simply as a kid—a portrayal that’s thoughtful, even brave, of Barfoot given today’s willingness to demonize violent youth. The unreality of Roddy’s adolescent thinking is well captured, as are his swings between sincere remorse and selfishness. But the story loses steam when Isla focuses on her past and on her first husband’s terrible secret that led their son to drug addiction and their daughter to a cult. Unfortunately, these putatively horrific facts are withheld for so long that once they’re revealed—however bad—they may elicit a shrug. Possibly that’s Barfoot’s point—that trauma to someone who experiences it may seem far less significant to someone on the outside—but the letdown after such buildup hurts the book. Eschewing the easy happy ending, Barfoot allows no miracle cure for Isla, but credibility is strained by the perfect second husband, the world’s most supportive mother, and a daughter—now free of the cult—who’s able to redeem Roddy through mysterious grace.
An ordinary woman and her family face extreme challenges, putting this one in contention for wide readership—and yet those expecting a genuine accounting won’t find it a winner.Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-58243-208-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
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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