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PIZZA FACE

Name: PIZZA FACE
Author: Ken Siman
ISBN: 0-8021-1398-2

OR, THE HERO OF SUBURBIA

by Ken Siman ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1991

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A comic debut that takes a fast trot through the homosexual coming-of-age of a middle-class North Carolina adolescent: a series of superficial set-pieces mostly, but the novel finally builds when its locale shifts to Washington, D.C. Andy, who ``was always looking for the right candidate,'' fills his loneliness by building a shrine to Jimmy Carter in his bedroom and by calling older men who collect political memorabilia: ``In high school, Andy's goal was to have the biggest Jimmy Carter collection in the whole country.'' Through this obsession, he meets a string of grotesques as well as Preston, who ``models underpants in the `Dads-n-Lads' section of the Sears, Roebuck catalogue.'' As Andy discovers his sexual orientation, he also gets a case of the zits—he ``preferred being called `Pizza Face' to `Monster Face.' '' The story bogs down in some low-rent satire of suburbia and officious types before Andy moves on to Chapel Hill for college and an unrequited crush on roommate Ryan. After participating in a study of a new acne medication (``By the end of the study, Andy's face was coming off'') and meeting Mary Alice (which results in a tepid affair while he fantasizes about Ryan), Andy gets involved in political reporting and nabs a job as an intern in Washington, D.C. His introduction to high-rolling political types, overtly gay young men, and cocaine results (the book's liveliest section) in a bland, unsatisfying affair with manipulative Ryan—Andy finally rejects him by knocking him unconscious—and in an older-but-wiser understanding of the world. Siman is so intent on getting every adolescent humiliation recorded that the final effect is blurry and, in places, sophomoric. Still, the voice is quirky and original, making him a writer to watch.

Pub Date: June 1, 1991

ISBN: 0-8021-1398-2

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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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.