A poignant, delightful take on morality, friendship, growing older and the legal profession.
In this exquisitely stripped-down novel from Massachusetts attorney Behar (Hoops, 2002), a group of six over-the-hill lawyers swaps case stories over breakfast at the titular greasy spoon.
Every Sunday, Carpenter (the reader never learns his first name) meets fellow attorneys Delaney, Fish, Morton, Steinberg and Weiskoff for coffee, eggs and a sizable helping of good conversation at the same two tables pushed together near the front window of Ed’s Breakfast Emporium. Prickly proprietor Ed has dubbed the group of regulars the “Barristers,” while the men have affectionately adopted the name for their end-of-the-week ritual. Told through a series of vignettes, the novel limns a handful of these breakfasts over the course of five summers as the group discusses politics, the Red Sox and cases on which they have recently toiled—with names judiciously changed, of course. The cases discussed range from heartbreaking ones of broken families without happy endings to more unusual fare, including one involving two Wiccans, a love spell and a restraining order. While the cases may differ, the breakfasts play out with a careful repetitiveness that deliciously captures the routine of everyday life. Weiskoff is always good for an out-of-the-blue comment. Delaney hardly ever fails at steering the conversation back on track. Ed can be relied upon to drop in on the middle of a story, orders in hand, and inject a stinging dose of blue-collar criticism into the white-collar chitchat. It’s not hard to imagine running into these aging, overweight and admittedly unextraordinary characters in real life, yet they remain completely absorbing. Between the witty zingers and moments of lightheartedness, the Barristers each struggle with bouts of dissatisfaction, uncertain about their present lots in life, and readers can’t help but relate.
A poignant, delightful take on morality, friendship, growing older and the legal profession.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4923-1872-9
Page Count: 478
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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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