A sturdy if unremarkable novel from the author of A Gentleman's Guide to the Frontier (1990) and In a High Place (1981). Meschery relates, in the first person and present tense, the story of Hedy Castle, a contemporary housewife who takes her life- -and the many conflicts that arise in it—one day at a time, ending up content and stable. Hedy is a border station employee who regulates the importation of pests into Northern California; she wishes she had as much control over her personal trials. Her husband, Ward, has been seized with his trademark wanderlust, leaving her to cope with their teenage daughter Jen's coming of age and the decline and eventual death of Hedy's ailing father, Reverend Gallagher. Already involved in the community and in her daughter's school (both run by Bible-thumping conservatives), Hedy volunteers to be the statistician of her daughter's varsity basketball team, the Lady Miners. That brings her back in touch with Pink Lindstrom, the feisty, forthright sports journalist who twice saved her life and who has fallen for her. The spirited, funny banter that leads to their love affair is one of the high points of the book, but the self-righteous townspeople see nothing admirable in married Hedy's escapades. When she tells a local gossip that she is pregnant (to protect her daughter's friend Tara, whom she accompanied to an abortion clinic), her life is only complicated further. But easygoing, tolerant, and humble Hedy lets the anger of a town afraid of lesbians, abortion, and unconventional lifestyles pass over her, emerging stronger in the end. Meschery's novel is like a small gift wrapped up in a big box: the story, though enjoyable, rattles around inside the reader's inflated hopes for it.
Pub Date: May 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-88419-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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