Given a journal belonging to an uncle he never knew existed, Sean Corrigan embarks on a quest across the Atlantic—and lifetimes—in search of the truth about Michael Corrigan, a cop accused of murder who fled to Ireland.
Sean falls in with his Irish family, who are privy to an ancient knowledge: that reincarnation is real and, while most of us don’t remember past lives, some, by taking belladonna and reaching a hallucinatory state close to death, can remember their former lives. Sean soon learns he is part of a karmic cycle in which bloodshed begets bloodshed and some mysterious debt needs to be repaid. The action shuttles between Sean’s narrative and that of his uncle Michael, whose flight from an almost certain murder conviction takes him to the Corrigan family’s ancestral land. Both experience uncanny bursts of insight and familiarity—e.g., understanding and speaking Gaelic despite never having learned the language. Michael realizes that his father, whose idea it was that he visit Ireland, has used him as a mule to smuggle cash to persons sympathetic with the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Both Sean and Michael fall for beguiling Irish lasses: Sean for his cousin (not by blood) Anne, and Michael for Kate Ryan, who tends the counter at a grocery store he happens upon. Soon enough, both become embroiled in ancient animosities and conflicts, encountering enemies English and Irish. This intertwining, transgenerational epic of romance and revenge never overcomes its protagonists’ naiveté, especially Sean’s, whose every paragraph ends in a series of questions illustrating his confusion at what is immediately obvious to the reader. As he seeks pages missing from the journal, Sean spouts trite observations on Irish culture and quasi-philosophical digressions on the implications of reincarnation as Anne clues him in to how this secret knowledge has been encoded in the parables and mythologies of the major religions. Michael’s narrative of being caught in the bloody struggle between members of the Provisional IRA, the British and with one another is more compelling. Unfortunately, weak writing and crepe-thin characters, as well as unnecessary redundancy between the dual narratives and uninteresting denouements make for an unrewarding read. A potentially good idea lacking adequate execution.
Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-56512-933-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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