A refreshingly energetic novel featuring lovable heroines.
In Murray’s debut novel, four lesbian friends navigate the romantic landscape of their senior years and support one another through hardships.
A group of women takes a trip to New Orleans, expecting an invigorating weekend of good food and music, and although their ages range from 58 to 69, they all share a passion for life. Dory and Robby have been romantic partners for more than 20 years; the former is spontaneous and sometimes absent-minded while the latter is practical and protective. Charlene is a down-to-earth former judge from humble beginnings who’s now running for State House representative; at the French Quarter Music Festival, a romance blossoms between her and a courteous woman named Lee Childs. Jill Hunt, the youngest and wildest of the group, is a sharp-witted woman with an inheritance who’s currently seeing a much younger woman. However, it soon becomes apparent that the women have secrets involving the success of Dory’s new book, the details of Jill’s money management, and the legitimacy of Charlene’s past employment. As the women face the consequences of deception, betrayal, and blackmail, their bonds become more important than ever. Murray alternates the focus among the four main women, extensively developing each character. Her depictions of their interactions, both platonic and romantic, make for entertaining reading. The romantic moments vary in tone, from the serious, steadfast intimacy of established partners to the infatuation of a casual affair, enlivened by several explicitly erotic scenes. Despite the gravity of the characters’ situations and their resulting emotional lows, the tone of the book is ultimately optimistic. Along the way, the author provides bits of casual wisdom; for instance, in the subplot about Dory’s journey as an author, Murray comments on the difficulties of breaking into publishing. The text is also self-aware of how stories about older lesbians don’t tend to receive a lot of mainstream attention. An older demographic may be this book’s main audience, but it merits consideration by adults of any age.
A refreshingly energetic novel featuring lovable heroines.Pub Date: March 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-948232-51-7
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Sapphire Books Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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