The editor emeritus of New York's Lower East Side (and the author of one previous novel, Kill the Poor, 1988) here tries to cash in on the post-Tarantino trend in nihilist/killer coolness for this tale of a Jack Henry Abbott sort—an ex-con who writes his way out of a life sentence only to end up back in the can on a bum rap. Joey One-Way, ``a walking aberration, a talking negotiation,'' serves over 17 years for killing his adulterous wife, who was ``light, bright, and almost white.'' As narrator of this supposedly transgressive narrative, Joey establishes his street credo early on, both with his ungrammatical ghetto dialect and his boast of tearing off a jail rapist's testicles. Joey's jailhouse masterpiece, ``White Man Black Hole,'' lands him a job ``juicing up'' scripts for a Miami Vice-like TV show set on Manhattan's mean streets, on which Joey is ostensibly an authority. Joey's pent-up aggression finds expression in a number of ways: He slashes a street punk in the face, he breaks a beer bottle over the head of a Maileresque writer at a cocktail party, and he enjoys lots of steamy sex with the wife of the man who arranged his release, the show's producer. Irony of ironies, this showbiz smoothie will also frame Joey for schtupping his old lady, a sultry French Algerian, a former prostitute who became famous writing about her career. Joey's so cool that he not only talks funny (``Joey smell death''), but he can't believe how lame all the upscale heroin users are in Manhattan (i.e., junkies ain't what they used to be). A stunning display of artsploitation, this self-styled shocker will probably suffer the fate of such books: Those who would be shocked aren't likely to read it. But if they do, they'll discover that the biggest con here is not Joey or his producer, but the novel itself. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-517-70819-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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