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SAY UNCLE

Name: SAY UNCLE
Author: Kay Ryan
ISBN: 0-8021-3717-2

by Kay Ryan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2000

Truly short-line, one-stanza (for the most part) wonders: full-brained poems in a largely half-brained world.

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A by no means banal or unfathomable fifth collection from Ryan, whose treatment may seem more traditional than most readers are used to encountering, but whose themes are quite unconventional. She employs the occasional rhyme—often several in a single poem—in a natural-seeming way, neither stretched nor constrained to fit the poetic idea, but arising from it. Ryan has a refined musical ear and handles the elements of her compositions adroitly. There are internal rhymes, assonances, alliteration, iterations, and other devices rarely encountered these days. In Ryan’s hands, they are not merely stylistic overlays but, rather, integral to the poem. Language and thought merge, or at least peaceably coexist, as in days of yore. The short lines and quick images—almost snapshots—are elemental. Ryan puts them together, then pulls them apart, and twists them in playful fashion, as though she were an alchemist with a modern experimental attitude: I wonder what’ll happen if I mix these two. The seemingly disparate elements meld, as when she speaks of the “nutrients in failure—deep amendments to the shallow soil of wishes . . . the dark and bitter flavors of black ales and peasant loaves.” The metaphors work thanks to the consanguinity of the images, which Ryan selects with care, rather than plunking down a stream-of-consciousness gallimaufry and leaving it up to the reader to develop a taste for it.

Truly short-line, one-stanza (for the most part) wonders: full-brained poems in a largely half-brained world.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-8021-3717-2

Page Count: 96

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.