An overlong episode of That Seventies Show. No jokes.
Feminism destroys marriage, in another earnest family drama from the author of Piper (2001), etc.
Remember those pesky women’s groups, with their inflammatory literature and fiery rhetoric? Get into the Wayback Machine and meet Cyrus Stapleton of Seattle, about to become a lonely guy. What can he do about it? Nothing much, it seems, besides whimper a little and obediently pack his bags when newly empowered Jude tells him it’s over. But what about the kids? Cyrus asks plaintively. Are you sure you want them? Didn’t you say you were feeling smothered, honey? Jude demurs. Looks like she’s been talking to a lawyer already, gosh darn it. And what about those manila folders labeled Kids, Property, and Support? She’s never been that organized before, Cyrus realizes. Why, he can still remember the day 15 years ago when Jude left their daughter Justine in a portable baby bed in a parking lot, right where someone could drive over her. And someone nearly did. And what about the brave quiver in son Derek’s chin and the tears rolling down his manly little eight-year-old face? Doesn’t Jude care about anybody but herself? Um, no. Cyrus’s peacenik brother advises him to hang tough and date. So he takes out Lill, the leader of Jude’s women’s group, a few times. But when he discovers that Lill has moved in with Jude, and the kids know that the women are a couple—well, a man’s gotta draw the line somewhere. But Cyrus doesn’t. Even after his daughter’s failed suicide attempt, he still won’t say right out loud that a live-in lesbian lover may not be the best custody arrangement, though Jude needles him about being uncool. “They pick up on your silence, Cyrus.” Not surprisingly, he files a motion to gain custody, but the outcome is, well, sort of a surprise.
An overlong episode of That Seventies Show. No jokes.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-57962-092-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
Though all the surface elements are in place, Picoult falters in her exploration of what turns a quiet kid into a murderer.
Picoult’s 14th novel (after The Tenth Circle, 2006, etc.) of a school shooting begins with high-voltage excitement, then slows by the middle, never regaining its initial pace or appeal.
Peter Houghton, 17, has been the victim of bullying since his first day of kindergarten, made all the more difficult by two factors: In small-town Sterling, N.H., Peter is in high school with the kids who’ve tormented him all his life; and his all-American older brother eggs the bullies on. Peter retreats into a world of video games and computer programming, but he’s never able to attain the safety of invisibility. And then one day he walks into Sterling High with a knapsack full of guns, kills ten students and wounds many others. Peter is caught and thrown in jail, but with over a thousand witnesses and video tape of the day, it will be hard work for the defense to clear him. His attorney, Jordan McAfee, hits on the only approach that might save the unlikable kid—a variation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by bullying. Thrown into the story is Judge Alex Cormier, and her daughter Josie, who used to be best friends with Peter until the popular crowd forced the limits of her loyalty. Also found dead was her boyfriend Matt, but Josie claims she can’t remember anything from that day. Picoult mixes McAfee’s attempt to build a defense with the mending relationship of Alex and Josie, but what proves a more intriguing premise is the response of Peter’s parents to the tragedy. How do you keep loving your son when he becomes a mass murderer? Unfortunately, this question, and others, remain, as the novel relies on repetition (the countless flashbacks of Peter’s victimization) rather than fresh insight. Peter fits the profile, but is never fully fleshed out beyond stereotype. Usually so adept at shaping the big stories with nuance, Picoult here takes a tragically familiar event, pads it with plot, but leaves out the subtleties of character.
Though all the surface elements are in place, Picoult falters in her exploration of what turns a quiet kid into a murderer.Pub Date: March 6, 2007
ISBN: 0-7434-9672-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
The fine Israeli writer Yehoshua (Open Heart, 1996, etc.) makes a lengthy journey into the year 999, the end of the first millennium. Indeed, it is the idea of a great journey that is the heart of the story here. Ben Attar, a Moroccan Jewish merchant has come a long distance to France to seek out his nephew and former partner Abulafia. Ben Attar, the nephew, and a third partner, the Muslim Abu Lutfi, had once done a lucrative business importing spices and treasures from the Atlas Mountains to eager buyers in medieval Europe. But now their partnership has been threatened by a complex series of events, with Abulafia married to a pious Jewish widow who objects vehemently to Ben Attar’s two wives. Accompanied by a Spanish rabbi, whose cleverness is belied by his seeming ineffectualness; the rabbi’s young son, Abu Lutfi; the two wives; a timorous black slave boy, and a crew of Arab sailors, the merchant has come to Europe to fight for his former partnership. The battle takes place in two makeshift courtrooms in the isolated Jewish communities of the French countryside, in scenes depicted with extraordinary vividness. Yehoshua tells this complex, densely layered story of love, sexuality, betrayal and “the twilight days, [when] faiths [are] sharpened in the join between one millennium and the next” in a richly allusive, languorous prose, full of lengthy, packed sentences, with clauses tumbling one after another. De Lange’s translation is sensitively nuanced and elegant, catching the strangely hypnotic rhythms of Yehoshua’s style. As the story draws toward its tragic conclusion—but not the one you might expect—the effect is moving, subtle, at once both cerebral and emotional. One of Yehoshua’s most fully realized works: a masterpiece.
Pub Date: Jan. 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-48882-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998
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