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OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR

An intelligent first novel, already excerpted in the New Yorker, that admirably avoids melodrama but sometimes tries too hard to be witty as it wrestles with the darkness beneath its glossy surface. Written in the form of journal entries, recollections, and finally as a straightforward narrative, it is a story of friendship between two young women of similar backgrounds, each burdened by an unhappy past. When 26-year-old award-winning photographer Harriet Rose arrives to spend a month in Geneva taking pictures, she bunks with her old Greenwich Village roommate, Anne Gordon. In New York the two had been the best of friends, soul-sisters who shared the same humor, tastes, and opinions, but Harriet finds Anne greatly changed. Not only is she ``frighteningly accessorized'' (her arms are ``racked with silver bangles''), but she ``has acquired an edge that was not there in New York.'' She has also acquired a lover: middle-aged and married Victor, who now works in Geneva for an international organization but was a friend of Anne's father, a fellow inmate of his at Auschwitz. Harriet, who is writing a journal for her own lover, Benedict, an artist, describes how each day she must vacate the apartment so that Anne and Victor can share their lunchtime tryst. Harriet is not impressed with Victor, who's obviously making Anne unhappy, but when Harriet tries to help, Anne insists that she herself is the ``monster.'' Meantime, both women recall the terrible losses of their childhoods: Anne discovered her mother's dead body, and her father was haunted by the Holocaust; Harriet saw her brother die, her mother go mad, and her father disappear. But it seems that Anne, increasingly troubled by her unhappiness (``I am already dead inside, no longer real''), can't be helped by even her dearest friend. A bit awkward and uneven at times, but, still, much to admire. A promising debut.

Pub Date: April 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-517-59890-6

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

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MAGIC HOUR

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

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