A stiff but sometimes moving debut about a day in the life of an 88-year-old woman. The often crotchety Ruth has lived for 20 years in a condominium complex in southern California, wondering ``How in God's name'' her life ``could have turned out like this?'' In pondering that question, she recalls a life in which ``She had been prudent. She had risked little. She had lost little. She had chosen correctly.'' And yet things still pull terribly at her heart: For decades, she's been ``marooned with a moron,'' her kind but foolish second husband; her granddaughter is married to a man whom Ruth finds self-interested and irresponsible; and her health, at long last, seems to be failing (she sees white lights, feels pangs, has spells). The secret core of Ruth's emotional life is her keen yearning for her first husband, Hale, who died long ago of a bizarre virus. During Ruth's reminiscences, we get glimpses of characters from the past—an opera-singing aunt who tricked her way into marriage to account for a pregnancy; a flamboyant friend from UCLA who owns a racy lingerie shop—as well as characters from the present, like Ruth's understanding and beloved cleaning ``girl'' Luzma and her little son Luis. Phillips's task—to write interestingly about the confined doings of an ancient, guarded, set-in-her-ways person who feels that life has passed her by—is a daunting one; and, while the events and details of Ruth's mundane life of TV dinners, old photos, and crotchety habits aren't always either captivating or patently charming, her day—an outing, a meal, a visit—nevertheless draws to a close (``The past seemed to steer her'') in small and genuine steps amidst passages of writing (``Life, she thought, was so incredibly temporary. Nothing ever lasted, nobody ever stayed'') that can draw strongly on a reader's heart, however briefly. An ambitious first novel, in all, that suggests a strong emerging talent.
Pub Date: Jan. 12, 1996
ISBN: 0-395-74285-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
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
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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