Nature writer and self-confessed ``bird fanatic'' Maslow (Sacred Horses, 1994; Bird of Life, Bird of Death, 1986) turns his focus to fiction in this consistently good, remarkably varied collection. All seven stories are set on the Gulf Coast, but they range in time from the 16th century to the present day. Maslow's ability to create distinct and memorable characters capable of telling their own stories in their own strong voices allows him to tackle a variety of material with equanimity and impact. The opener (and one of the longest of the batch), ``The Last Lector,'' introduces Julieta Suarez, an elderly woman of Cuban ancestry who has been working for decades in a Tampa cigar factory. Julieta tells stories of the old days—focusing on the charming, doomed figure of Cesar Fuentes—to Carmen, a younger, jaded fellow employee. When, at story's end, it's revealed that Carmen has been listening to her Walkman throughout Julieta's rich reminiscing, the reader feels Julieta's dual sense of loss (her past, her connection with the future) with a sharp poignancy. In ``Africatown, Children,'' the voice of matriarch Mama Lulu (``one hundred years if she's a day'') is the beguiling guide; she recounts the origins of Africatown, USA, a place peopled by the descendants of Africans carried on the Clotilde, the last slave ship to ever land on American soil. ``The Healer: Chronicle of a Lost Expedition'' and ``A Mermaid Pining for Her Sailor'' are also narrated by feisty, worldly protagonists; each describes his adventures and life's story with aplomb. Not a tour de force, but (impressively) without a single clunker either; Maslow's gift for detail—perhaps perfected in his work as a naturalist—enables his slice-of-life sketches to add up to a rich and stirring whole.
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-40876-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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