Short and sweet; a mosaic of people, places and culture well worth knowing.
Costanzo (Restoration, 2014, etc.) presents his readers with a lush, literary portrait of family and culture across America after the second world war.
Tommy Caruso hasn’t seen his mascalzone (scoundrel) of a father for years, but he has his own life to live. His mother may have sent him to America from Naples to track down the deadbeat, but Tommy is more concerned with keeping track of his girlfriends. What’s more, the place mentioned in his last disappointing Christmas card—Livingstone, Colorado—doesn’t even seem to exist. The introduction is stunted by Tommy’s lack of investment in the search, but once he starts across the country, spurred on by his mother’s unquenchable temper, the story picks up speed. Tommy meets an excellent cast of secondary characters, uncovers layer upon layer of his father’s double life, and he soon realizes that the real story goes much deeper into the realms of crime, deception and American history than he could have imagined. But while Tommy’s discovery of his father’s life and the various branches of the Caruso family are fascinating, the novel’s greatest strength is in its breadth rather than its depth. From Laurie, a young woman who wants nothing more than to escape the dullness of her family, to Dolores, a Navajo girl hoping to use her college education to help her people, Tommy rarely witnesses a piece of American culture without also finding its opposite. And while he stumbles through his own life, he remains open to the stories around him. Even when he stays in one place for a while, he never stands still, becoming a barber and a chef in turn, meeting men out of history and forging memories of home in to a brilliant future. Tommy abruptly disappears from these jobs to continue his search, lending the novel a disjointed atmosphere at times, but overall, the story flows naturally, knitting together stories of both the beauty of the American dream and the failings of American reality.
Short and sweet; a mosaic of people, places and culture well worth knowing.Pub Date: June 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-1483411989
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.
A very funny novel about the survivor of a childhood trauma.
At 29, Eleanor Oliphant has built an utterly solitary life that almost works. During the week, she toils in an office—don’t inquire further; in almost eight years no one has—and from Friday to Monday she makes the time go by with pizza and booze. Enlivening this spare existence is a constant inner monologue that is cranky, hilarious, deadpan, and irresistible. Eleanor Oliphant has something to say about everything. Riding the train, she comments on the automated announcements: “I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon.” Eleanor herself might as well be from Ulan Bator—she’s never had a manicure or a haircut, worn high heels, had anyone visit her apartment, or even had a friend. After a mysterious event in her childhood that left half her face badly scarred, she was raised in foster care, spent her college years in an abusive relationship, and is now, as the title states, perfectly fine. Her extreme social awkwardness has made her the butt of nasty jokes among her colleagues, which don’t seem to bother her much, though one notices she is stockpiling painkillers and becoming increasingly obsessed with an unrealistic crush on a local musician. Eleanor’s life begins to change when Raymond, a goofy guy from the IT department, takes her for a potential friend, not a freak of nature. As if he were luring a feral animal from its hiding place with a bit of cheese, he gradually brings Eleanor out of her shell. Then it turns out that shell was serving a purpose.
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2068-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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