Masterful storytelling and memorable characters combine to give us a wise and gently truthful take on a highly charged...
Another splendidly nuanced tale of contemporary family life from the always expert Trollope (Other People’s Children, 1999, etc.).
After a seven-year secret liaison with Merrion Palmer, a clever London lawyer, 62-year-old Guy Stockdale, a distinguished judge with an irreproachable reputation, has decided to leave his wife, Laura, and marry his much younger mistress. (As usual, Trollope puts a fresh spin on a hackneyed situation by making the husband rather than the wife the protagonist.) Guy’s decision prompts all concerned to question old loyalties, the past, and the meaning of love itself. Laura, who has felt for years that she paid too high a price in marrying, refuses to sell the family home, where she’s created a beautiful garden, and insists that her eldest and favorite son, Simon, a public-interest lawyer, act as her counsel. Simon, married to Carrie and father of Jack, Rachel, and Emma, is torn between his loyalty to his parents and the needs of his own family. Meanwhile, younger brother Alan, gay and presently unattached, worries that their mother is asking too much of the already overworked Simon. And the three grandchildren resent the strain Laura is imposing on their parents. As the legal proceedings get underway, Carrie, angry at Laura's obstinacy and dependency on Simon, invites Merrion to meet the family. The visit is a success, and the rest of the Stockdales are reconciled to Guy’s choice. But Laura continues to be difficult, Simon remains torn, and Jack, hurting after his first high-school romance ends, seeks comfort from his grandfather. Merrion and Guy feel the demands of kin complicating what had seemed a simple and perfect love.
Masterful storytelling and memorable characters combine to give us a wise and gently truthful take on a highly charged subject.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-670-89150-9
Page Count: 293
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
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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