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 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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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