This richly rewarding collection by the author of Death Qualified (1991), etc., easily transcends its science-fiction classification—focusing less on the vagaries of time and space than on the imaginations of characters struggling to come to terms with their fate. ``I know of no other writer who conveys so successfully the twin truths of our lives—that the world is at once so much better and so much worse than we imagine it to be,'' writes Karen Joy Fowler (Sarah Canary, 1991) in her foreword here. Wilhelm's refreshingly free use of fantasy to evoke her characters' emotional realities conveys, as well, a rich range and variety of truths between the extremes. In ``The Look Alike,'' a woman's grief over her stillborn child leads her to believe that a double has taken over her destiny; in the Nebula-winning ``Forever Yours, Anna,'' a divorced graphologist falls in love with a woman through her handwriting, only to realize, after an exhaustive search, that the woman exists only in the future; and in the title story, a small- town journalist becomes so captivated by an alien creature he discovers by the side of the road that he fails to realize that the creature does not love him in return. Double identities and time travel figure frequently in the fantasies of Wilhelm's brooding, solitary characters, yet instead of distracting from the quiet desperation at the bottom of their lives, this subjective rendering brings readers to a deeper, more moving and memorable, psychological truth. An aptly titled and unusually successful departure from traditional storytelling—these tales, all but one of which were first published in Redbook, Omni, and other magazines, may serve to expand Wilhelm's readership.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-312-06898-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1992
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
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.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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