This latest from bestselling Gould (The Best Is Yet to Come, 2002, etc.) is—well, indescribable.
A mother’s little ghostwriter digs up family secrets galore.
Tracey Sullivan, peppy research assistant for a Miami TV newsroom, has big dreams of writing bestsellers, but not much spare time. She’s gotta work for a living, even though she has a rich boyfriend. Brian Rutherford Biggs III is fun, virile, and unbelievably good-looking, with the “swept-back profile of an aerodynamically-designed hood ornament.” And he just bought a killer boat, with “aerodynamic Euro-styling and a swept-back radar arch.” Brian’s one cool breeze, all right, though down-to-earth Tracey wonders if he’ll ever introduce her to his parents. Meantime, there’s sex and booze. But does this book have a plot? It certainly does. And it revolves around the as-yet-unwritten memoirs of bitchy B-movie star Urania Vickers, who hasn’t delivered the promised manuscript to Greenleaf Books, a publisher recently been absorbed by one of those hydra-headed, multinational conglomerates that doesn’t give a whistle about authors or fine literature. Just the bottom line. Heartless bastards! The plot thickens faster than stale tapioca in the Floribbean sun: Tracey has to pay the mortgages on her father’s property after his mysterious suicide, and a subsidiary of her boyfriend’s financial empire is calling in the notes. Really heartless bastards! Poking around in Dad’s papers reveals a mysterious family link to Urania—can this washed-up movie star actually be her mother? Tracey jumps at the offer of big bucks to ghostwrite Urania’s book-to-be. Trailing after the bejeweled movie star to innumerable glamorous international locales oughta be a blast. And maybe, just maybe, mommy will love Tracey again. But not so fast. There was an identical twin sister, brain-damaged in an accident, who pretended to be Urania and caused no end of trouble. Not even being shut up in the tower of Urania’s villa on Santorini has cured her. Gee whiz! Which twin is which? Will Tracey’s real mother please stand up?
This latest from bestselling Gould (The Best Is Yet to Come, 2002, etc.) is—well, indescribable.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2003
ISBN: 0-451-21047-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2003
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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