A heartfelt—if at times slow-moving and overlong—picture of a family’s distress.
A semiautobiographical novel about one woman’s long struggle with her divorce and her growing children.
Hart’s debut begins with the protagonist, Kelli (also the author’s first name), arguing with her husband, Guthrie. Guthrie and Kelli have been married almost 22 years and together have six children. They live in a rural place where the scenery is dotted with horses, trucks, and plenty of disagreements. As Kelli develops a serious joint illness, her marriage deteriorates ever further. When the divorce papers are finally filed, it is merely the beginning of a long war waged in and out of court. The reader follows along over the course of the next 10-plus years as Kelli battles for the custody of her children and, as they grow into adults, simply for their love and trust. Kelli faces challenges ranging from mounting legal debts to finding a God-fearing man to be her next husband. She endures a stint in jail. All of those pale, however, in comparison to the occasional searing comments from her children such as, “This divorce is all your fault!” Nevertheless, Kelli holds on to her Christian beliefs and does her best to maintain hope in a story that progresses slowly. Readers get a wealth of information, not all of it necessary, from teachers’ reports to discussions about who is going to visit whom and when. At one point, the book describes a mundane conversation Kelli has with a daughter about her son Aaron: “You told Aaron that you would come here for Easter. Aaron says you’ve changed your mind. Is this true?” Although some of the finer points get lost in the shuffle of this long period of turmoil, events are painted realistically. Anyone who’s experienced a messy divorce can likely relate to the whirlwind of attorneys, social workers, hurt feelings, and supervised visits the book describes. The dialogue can be blunt—a son tells Kelli, “I’m glad you discipline us”—but when tragedy strikes the family, it is vivid. And it is the vividness that keeps the story alive until the very end.
A heartfelt—if at times slow-moving and overlong—picture of a family’s distress.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-69846-522-7
Page Count: 595
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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