Gentle humor and sharp observation couched in straightforward prose with none of the preening preciosity so often seen in...
Wry, rueful tales of a Southern debutante’s mostly disappointing love life.
The unifying motif of Crouch’s debut is the Charleston Cotillion Training School, where South Carolina girls and boys of a certain class are taught ballroom dance in preparation for the girls’ coming out parties. Prominent among the debutantes are the Camellias, a sorority of women whose mission is to “prepare their daughters for marriage to a decent man.” For Sarah Walters and her friends Bitsy, Charlotte and Annie, Camellia membership will mark their most permanent attachment; it seems that for latter-day debutantes there’s a shortage of decent men. The novel is comprised of linked short stories, some veering off into the equally problematic amours of peripheral characters including Sarah’s brilliant older sister Eloise and their mother. After college, Sarah moves to New York City seeking a writer’s life. While working lowly editorial positions, she rooms with Charlotte, a fledgling fashion designer who’s in and out of rehab. Sarah’s man-that-got-away is blue-blooded Max, who “made money with money.” His casual cruelty is not tempered by any redeeming appeal, and Sarah’s intractable obsession with him beggars belief. She attempts, vainly, to settle for guys from home, or guys she thought of as just friends but was holding in reserve as fallback lovers. Annie, who never leaves Charleston, survives a relationship with a feckless artist to find love and financial stability. Bitsy marries money, which is scant consolation for her husband’s callousness—his infidelities persist as she dies of cancer. Charlotte chooses first drugs, then entrepreneurial success, over relationships. Sarah, finding at 31 that she’s “missed [her] window” of opportunity with the fallback guys, has a child by an extremely casual acquaintance. By age 35 she’s accepted the fact that neither she nor the men in her life will ever measure up to debutante standards.
Gentle humor and sharp observation couched in straightforward prose with none of the preening preciosity so often seen in Southern fiction.Pub Date: April 7, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-316-00211-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2008
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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