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WHEN THEY TOOK AWAY THE MAN IN THE MOON

Name: WHEN THEY TOOK AWAY THE MAN IN THE MOON
Author: Kate Lehrer
ISBN: 0-517-59441-2

by Kate Lehrer ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 12, 1993

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The author of Best Intentions (1987) offers a rather meandering tale of a 45-year-old Boston-based political consultant whose life turns to mush as she struggles to deal with the ghosts of her Texas childhood. The man in the moon disappears sometimes, H.A.'s father used to tell her, but little girls shouldn't give up hope of seeing him again, because the moon always comes back. Not so the father, unfortunately—he dies when H.A. is five years old, and for decades after, his precocious daughter blames herself for his absence. But longing for her father is not all that drives H.A.—her smart- talking, cigarette-puffing mother and aunts back in Rollins, Texas, form the immutable bedrock of the grown-up H.A.'s self-image as she plows through a series of love affairs and marriages and into a career selling aspiring politicians to the public. Something happens, though, as H.A. approaches middle age and must face her mother's physical and mental decline, the assured death from cancer of her first love and lifelong intermittent lover, the difficulties of initiating yet another love affair—this one with a professional colleague substantially her junior—and the fact that Ralph Stone, the senatorial contender she and the colleague both represent, is turning out to be a world-class liar and sneak. Unsure what went wrong in a life that should have worked out as planned, H.A. flees to Rollins to renew herself in the waters of family solidarity. There, she takes a cue from her female relatives, dealing with one problem at a time until, on the surface at least, satisfying solutions are achieved all around. Vague writing, muddled climaxes and unpredictably seesawing emotions—all mar this well-intentioned midlife-crisis novel.

Pub Date: June 12, 1993

ISBN: 0-517-59441-2

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Harmony

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.