Olshan (The Waterline, 1989, etc.) has written a beautiful and flawed novel about two gay men learning to trust again. One night, when Will Kaplan was living in Southern California, he and his lover went out for an ocean swim, something they had done numerous times together, but this time his lover vanished. Now, ten years later and living in Manhattan, Will still doesn't know if he drowned or ran off, scared of the ever-increasing intensity of their relationship. Since the disappearance, Will has been in a series of failed relationships, each marred by the fact that Will hasn't been able to completely commit to anyone else or let anyone else close to him. But then he meets the equally damaged Sean Paris, and together they dance around intimacy. Set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic, as well as against the shallow, hedonistic scene of Fire Island and the gay discos, their relationship unfolds in front of several jealous ex-lovers and lovers of their exes, all of whom seem intent on disrupting Will and Sean's chances for happiness. Olshan's writing is consistently excellent, his long, careful observations about obsession, loss, and rejection are often transcendent. Yet the book sometimes bogs down in the mechanics of the strained plot, especially in the mystery of Sean's former lover. Also one wonders why the book is written from the point of view of Will having a one-way conversation with Sean (e.g., ``Then you jumped off your chair...''). One keeps waiting for a payoff from this odd and obtrusive device, but it never happens, and it doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than as an experiment. Destined to be compared with James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, this is a passionate and deeply felt book. But like Baldwin, Olshan deems it necessary to surround a powerful love story with an awkward and distracting plot.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-88580-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
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
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