A compelling, if talky, tale of youthful sexual obsession, spoiled somewhat by extraneous sermonizing toward the end. Miller, the author of Days of Wine and Roses, as well as three previous novels (The Skook, 1984, etc.), sets his latest in Houston. The year is 1937, and Dub can't concentrate on much beyond the mysteries of sex. The Rice University freshman lives at home; his father is emotionally distant, while his mother struggles to keep the family intact. Then Dub meets 16-year-old Joy. She's not what the locals call a ``nice girl.'' Indeed, as Dub discovers during their first encounter, she's not only as interested in sex as he is but she's willing to do anything he could imagine—and a whole lot more. Dub finds out that Joy's father has been dead for a few years, that she hates her mother, and that she's been the victim of sexual abuse, all of which he believes has made her ``crazy.'' Yet he can't pull away, in part because of the sex but also because Dub has trouble acting decisively; when in doubt, he falls into the pose of the laconic gunslinger and allows himself to be pushed along by the desires of others—as, for instance, when he becomes involved in the sleazy world of amateur boxing. Throughout here, Dub is bothered by the many lies he finds himself telling his mother, whose deeply held religious views he doesn't fully accept but does respect. Readers, meanwhile, will be drawn into Dub's world but may find themselves wishing the characters wouldn't tell everything about their lives—certainly not in page-long expositions. An additional problem is the political message tacked on to the finale, which falls with a resounding thud. Nonetheless, often exuberant and frequently moving. A gritty, honest look at the consequences of letting hormones run the whole show.
Pub Date: May 22, 1995
ISBN: 1-55611-448-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 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
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