From the author of When They Took Away the Man in the Moon (1993), etc., a strange novel about two society women who attempt to create a feminist utopia in turn-of-the-century Kansas. Lydia, an American in Paris, is immersed as the story begins in a cat-and-mouse romance with a shifty Lothario who mistakes her for one of the hordes of wealthy American girls sent to Europe to find titled husbands. Lydia, however, has little to offer: Her tiny fortune is being whittled away by the demands of Parisian society. Newly thrown into the marriage game is the headstrong Charlotte, and she too is indifferent to the prospect of marriage, which she interprets as servitude. After a series of broken hearts, familial and romantic, the two become fast friends (despite Lydia's pathological need to control Charlotte) and decide to become pioneers. In search of their ``essence,'' the two hope to escape the rigid class and social distinctions of an ostentatious society in favor of a simpler, more meaningful way of life. Or as Charlotte chirps: ``We can discover what it really means to be a woman and, in the process, liberate ourselves from other people's definitions. We can be free!'' So with trunkloads of enthusiasm, the two purchase land in Kansas, building two identical homes, connected by a walkway, christening their new world Twin House Farms. A quaint idea, though the charm dampens and they forget all about capturing their ``essence'' when confronted by the hardships of prairie life. Suspicious of a group of single women farmers (Charlotte and Lydia invite their circle of friends to join them) the townsfolk are understandably wary, especially since Lydia and Charlotte condescend at every turn. After years of hardship, the women are defeated thoroughly by both external and internal forces. Weighed down by heavy-handed and rather simplistic polemics, the already unappealing characters here have no chance of flying. A disappointing second novel.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-517-59956-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
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
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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