A well-timed and masterful sendup of celebrity, racism, and the justice system in America, by the esteemed author of The Liberty Campaign (1993), etc. Paul Soloway is a man behind his time: Passionate about literature, unfamiliar with the modern art of compromise, the Columbia graduate settles down on Manhattan's Upper West Side to commit his life to great books. Aiding and abetting is his hard- working wife, Renata, who maintains a full-time job and gives birth to two boys while Paul labors on his first novel—doing so for a decade as the Soloways grow ever poorer and more depressed. But all changes the day a local court case inspires a race riot, and Paul, through a misunderstanding, is beaten and kidnapped by a group of young black men. It's only a day or so before the police rescue Paul, but to his surprise he emerges from the hospital a hero, with Hollywood and the New York publishing world banging on his door. Though he's repelled by the idea of a best-selling true-crime account while his ``real'' work languishes in a drawer, Paul's impoverished family persuade him to make a profitable publishing deal. Little does he know that his surviving kidnapper, Victor Hartley, is also entertaining visits from TV-movie moguls—and from a celebrity lawyer intent on making him the hero of the story. Grasping at his new celebrity as a way out of prison, and at the TV-movie deals as a way out of the ghetto, Victor is desperate to make his voice heard over Paul's. Out on probation, he commits a desperate act that seals his fate—while Paul, the quintessential oblivious white guy, innocently reaps the rewards. A hasty conclusion outlining the amicable dissolution of Paul's marriage and Victor's unfair sentencing proves disappointing after a setup this fascinating. Still, the author has much to say about life and art. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-47459-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
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
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