Myerson follows up her acclaimed debut (Sleepwalking, 1995) with a similarly detailed study of family distress and dysfunction- -but this time there's a wild card: An unbalanced evangelist who inserts himself into the family's unstable dynamic, with catastrophic consequences. Frank Chapman is a bloody, sorry mess when Donna, her lover Will, and her sister Gayle find him semiconscious in a London park. The three get him to the hospital where Gayle works; and as the old widower recovers, she is both attracted to him and repelled; Inexplicably, he knows all about lovely Donna's twisted spine, which makes every day a painful trial for her, and he's certain that he can cure her. In time, Gayle is persuaded to let him try, and when Will is brought around too, Donna agrees to give it a shot. The faith healing works, and overnight Donna finds a new lust for life; she can't bring herself, however, to feel grateful to the unwashed, bizarre old man who made it possible. Gayle and Will visit Frank regularly to show their gratitude, even though they also find him difficult; as time passes, the two begin to take pleasure in each other's company, while Will and Donna become ever more estranged. During a family seaside vacation, complete with the sisters' mum, their brother Simon (a shiftless sponger with an unnatural affection for Gayle), and Frank, Gayle and Will's repressed passions emerge; they start an affair that continues back in London, even after Donna becomes pregnant. Frank, cut loose and left to fend for himself, festers in his own dark passions and memories, until a chance encounter with Will turns him from a healer for Jesus into an Old Testament avenger. Honest characterization and a flair for exposing family failings work as well here as before—and even if the portrayal of the outsider ultimately becomes heavy-handed, Myerson is clearly adept at chronicling the wrenching doubts at work in even the most intimate relations.
Pub Date: June 10, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-47507-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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