Three women survive love and loss in Lerner’s debut novel, set in the tumultuous years from 1987 to 1992.
In alternating chapters, Lerner presents the interconnected stories of Rose, Jane and Eva. Rose, a lapsed Catholic who, at 58, deals with her mixed emotions regarding the death of her husband and her daughter’s unwanted pregnancy. Jane, meanwhile, reels from her husband’s shocking announcement soon after she finds that she’s pregnant for the first time at 37. In turn, African-American Eva, 38, admits her affair with a white married man. The narrative quickly reveals the connections among these three very different women; college friends Jane and Eva are partners at an interior design firm in Sag Harbor, and Rose meets Jane at the firm while seeking items to use in her work creating miniature houses. Eventually Rose convinces Jane to join her in protesting the abortions occurring at a local women’s clinic—one Eva designed. Throughout, the women struggle with their relationships with their husbands and boyfriends, as well as their personal views on religion, women’s rights and fertility. While the trio’s heated conflicts and emotional turmoil generally ring true, at times the plot feels overstuffed, with the inclusion of so many touchstones of the era—HIV/AIDS, in vitro pregnancy, abortion, sexual harassment—squeezed into the pages. Packed with realistic dialogue, minimal descriptions and present-tense narration, the book reads more like a screenplay than a novel, which underscores its drama. One notable exception to the normally staccato prose is the description of Rose’s home studio, which Lerner lovingly details. The periodic mentions of news events such as the Challenger explosion and the Anita Hill hearings help ground the novel solidly in its time period, along with smaller events, such as Jane not allowing someone with AIDS to hug her child because of the fear of infection. Unfortunately, it’s not until the last third of the book, when a serious life-and-death situation causes the women to act and not just react, that the novel begins to feel cohesive and compelling. An overwrought tale steeped in the major feminist concerns of the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Pub Date: June 21, 2010
ISBN: 978-1439228807
Page Count: 361
Publisher: BookSurge
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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