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COURTING DISASTER

Name: COURTING DISASTER
Author: Julie Edelson
ISBN: 1-58195-003-9

by Julie Edelson ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1999

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Love and life, death and the law—all mix and match in this freewheeling southern comedy from Edelson (Bad Housekeeping, 1995, etc.), as a family warped by tragedy careens toward a catastrophe in the unlikely form of a Thanksgiving dinner. Years earlier, Angie and Joe DiPietro suffered a grievous loss when their five-year-old son died of Reye’s syndrome. Now Angie is a crisis-line- and hospice-volunteer and a supplier of marijuana to cancer patients, as well as the mother of teenaged Tess and young Nick, who’s slightly older than her other boy was when he died. Angie is also a woman of affairs—her latest Romeo is Mason, her pot grower. Between Angie and Joe is a wall of grief grown thick with the years. Joe has channeled his misery into his legal work, but knowledge of Angie’s latest infidelity drives him to explore that option too, with a curvy Puerto Rican psychologist whose professional services he’s used in court. Meanwhile, Tess, in the full flower of adolescent rebellion, runs away—though not far. From her new vantage point, she witnesses both her parents stepping out, and she lashes out by ratting on her own wanna be boyfriend, who’s nabbed carrying enough LSD to put him away for a while. Then Mutt, the family dog, dies. Somehow out of this maelstrom emerges a family Thanksgiving complete with all the trimmings: both lovers, Angie’s paranoid mother, Tess and her now-bailed-out boyfriend, and even Mutt, sealed in a cooler while awaiting burial in the backyard. For a moment it looks as if there’s magic in the air. Then the police arrive. . . . Riotously fresh and funny scenes, written with liberal doses of irony and reality. The finale, though, steps too far over the credibility line, ringing a sour note in what is otherwise a wonderful chorus of wacky southern voices.

Pub Date: May 1, 1999

ISBN: 1-58195-003-9

Page Count: 320

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.