An uneven collection that would have benefited from more careful culling.
A batch of lackluster coming-of-age stories mingle with sharply observed tales of contemporary angst in Kulpa’s first collection.
The title story, the book’s strongest, deals with two brothers who drink too much. It’s Christmas Eve, and Scotty, who has been sober for ten months, is home with his wife Stephanie and their two daughters. His brother Bill, who thrives on drama, calls and insists that Scotty meet him at a pizza place. Bill has discovered his ex-wife in bed with a much younger man and he has retaliated by taking their 18-month-old son. Scotty drives with him to the house of a friend who can take care of the baby, then to their hometown. There the brothers take a trip down memory lane and end up in a bar where customers knew their father, who jumped out of a window on Christmas Eve ten years before. Another intriguing story, “Maintaining,” offers a look at the dramas inside a drug and alcohol treatment clinic, told from the perspective of a receptionist. A half-dozen stories tread more familiar ground—losing love, finding love—without any particular distinction. “Have You Seen Her” is an overly lengthy search for a lost love whose photo the protagonist thinks he has spotted in a Lower East Side deli; “Someone You Don’t Remember” is a too-brief sketch about a former lover; “Elaine, I Love You,” finds a woman remembering her crush on a Polish sailor who docked in Newport when she was 13. “Cristina in Another Country” is a more daring and more effective tale of a lost love, told in fragments by a college student whose road trip is detoured to Mexico. The last story, “The Salvation Café,” is a mere paragraph long, and not a very interesting paragraph at that.
An uneven collection that would have benefited from more careful culling.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2005
ISBN: 0-922811-62-8
Page Count: 232
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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