A pleasing retreat into American pastoral life.
This nostalgic view of pastoral life on an Iowa farm delivers the warm fuzzies without sentimentality.
Cal and Helen Earlywine have spent a lifetime working the land and raising a family, but tragedy has shadowed much of their lives. Twenty-six years ago, their son Tom was struck by lightning and killed while helping Cal plant a field. The tragedy complicated an already fraught relationship between Cal and his remaining son, Wayne, an artist who showed no interest in taking up the family’s farming business. Now, with Cal’s ailing hip threatening his mobility and his mood, Helen is having second thoughts about the once-jovial man she married. Enter Nancy Bannister, town booster extraordinaire. Her plans to build a revenue-generating corn maze on the parcel of land where Tom died could either be the poultice Cal needs to begin to finally come to terms with his son’s death or an abomination that disgraces Tom’s legacy. A picturesque yet sober look at a quickly retreating American archetype, Kasten’s (Ten Small Beds, 2011, etc.) portrayal of rural life ably situates readers in Cal and Helen’s world, often skillfully shifting between their perspectives to untwine a thorny issue. But the narrative often lacks the gravitas to really connect to readers. Throughout, Cal and Helen contend with a variety of obstacles—with varying degrees of success—that have the potential to derail their comfortable lives, but independent of the outcomes, the momentum remains as flat as the land the Earlywines have cultivated for generations. Still, there’s plenty to like here. The bristly relationship between Cal and Wayne is well-articulated, the evolution of Nancy’s corn maze from idea to reality is fun to watch, and Helen’s struggle to come to terms with her beloved older sister’s Alzheimer’s is both illuminating and touching.
A pleasing retreat into American pastoral life.Pub Date: July 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-0983195931
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Kate Kasten
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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