A haunting story of guilt, denial and the possibility of demonic possession.
A psychological thriller that keeps the reader on edge until the last page.
With occasional echoes of The Exorcist, this debut novel concerns the therapy of George Davies, who must come to terms with what he suffered as a child before he can function as a father. The 30-year-old Davies has a phobia that prevents him from holding his newborn son, thus threatening his previously happy marriage. Seeking the help of a psychiatrist, to whom this first-person narrative is addressed, George reveals that he had undergone therapy 19 years earlier, because of experiences that he has done his best to repress and would plainly prefer not to revisit. Yet he agrees to recount whatever he can remember in a series of notebooks, which constitute most of this novel’s chapters. He details the torment he endured after the death of his father, who had become ill on a humanitarian mission to Honduras. The death leaves the 11-year-old George not only fatherless but friendless, as his schoolmates turn on him with insinuations that there was some scandal surrounding his father. An apparition visits the boy, one that might be a psychological projection of George’s darker side, might be a demon, might be an imaginary (or not-so-imaginary) friend. The Friend (as George refers to him) pushes the boy toward revelations about not only his father’s death, but about his parents’ marriage. Though both academics, George’s parents held very different views on religion, with his father feeling that the devil was a palpably real presence who must be battled while his mother remained more of a modern rationalist, dismissing her husband’s beliefs as superstition. Whether the cause is psychological or spiritual, George as a boy becomes involved in a series of strange calamities that suggest he should be institutionalized. The adult George ultimately realizes that he can’t be a father until he resolves his boyhood mystery.
A haunting story of guilt, denial and the possibility of demonic possession.Pub Date: May 22, 2007
ISBN: 0-307-35122-X
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Shaye Areheart/Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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