Third-novelist Miller gets the details down, but the characters remain clichés without inner lives or credibility.
Inner-city chronicler Miller (I’m Telling, 2002, etc.) returns to drug dealers, welfare moms, and violent teenagers.
Three twentysomething, politically correct friends are determined to survive and thrive: Brenda Carver is an African-American single mother of four, on welfare, who wants to be a novelist; Rosa Rivera is a Puerto Rican who dreams of becoming an actress; and Sharif Goldsby is a gay activist who wants to improve people’s lives. All three live in the Ida B. Barrett Wells Tower, a federally subsidized project in Harlem rumored to be scheduled for demolition and replacement by luxury apartments. Miller’s prose is as graphic and gritty as her setting, and the story, though not exactly uplifting, is testimony to hope and perseverance despite a slight presence of the clumsy and formulaic (in the epilogue we learn that the story just told is the first draft of Brenda’s roman à clef novel). The residents of Ida B. routinely defraud the federal government, sell stolen goods, take drugs, and have indiscriminate sexual liaisons. Their response to trouble is often violence, so when foster child Jimmy, who’s been living with Brenda’s mother across the hall, is brutally raped and murdered by Ronald, who lives with his mother in the block, Ronald is then shot in vengeance by another resident, the college-bound Ricky. Immediately, Brenda, whose son found Jimmy’s body stuffed into a clothes dryer; Rosa, who finally has a part in a downtown play; and Sharif, an old protest-pro, decide to get Ricky out of trouble. They organize protests against the police; with the help of Rosa’s well-connected director, they find a lawyer; and an old friend whose mom, the resident fence, lives in the block is willing for reasons of his own to confess to the murder. Ida B. is destined for destruction, but the three friends are not.
Third-novelist Miller gets the details down, but the characters remain clichés without inner lives or credibility.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-6001-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
