Pleasant reading for golfers, slim pickings for everyone else.
There’s a doomed romance and a life-lesson for a teenager in Coyne’s ninth novel, but the game’s the thing, with a hole-by-hole analysis of two rounds of golf.
It’s the summer of 1946, and 14-year-old Jack Handley is feeling lost. His father was killed late in World War II, and his mother has lost the will to live. The two reside on a small dairy farm outside Chicago, with Jack’s big sister. Jack is a first-rate caddie at the nearby golf club, where the assistant pro, charming, happy-go-lucky 20-year-old Matt Richardson, is like his big brother. Matt is beginning a romance with Sarah DuPree, daughter of the club president, who does not consider the hired help to be eligible in-law material, so Matt passes messages to Sarah through Jack, his go-between. In an awkward frame device, an elderly Jack returns to the club years later to talk about his book on Ben Hogan and that summer of ’46. At the time, Hogan burned as bright as Tiger Woods does today, so it’s a big thrill for Jack when Hogan lets him caddie for him during a practice round. The last nine holes Hogan plays against Matt. (Thanks to the transparency of the author’s prose, even a non-golfer who wouldn’t know a birdie from a bogey will catch his drift, though the detail can be overwhelming.) The second game to be dissected is the first round of the Chicago Open, for which boy-wonder Matt has qualified. There had been some question whether Jack would caddie for Hogan or Matt, but Hogan the guru teaches Jack about loyalty and responsibility; no question, he must caddie for Matt, who will be the surprise winner, setting the course record. He won’t win his girl, though. Sarah’s father foils their planned elopement and there’s a fatal accident and perfunctory wrap-up, in stark contrast to the leisurely description of the games.
Pleasant reading for golfers, slim pickings for everyone else.Pub Date: May 8, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-35523-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
