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GOOD GIRLS DON'T WEAR TROUSERS

Name: GOOD GIRLS DON'T WEAR TROUSERS
Author: Lara Cardella
ISBN: 1-55970-263-X

by Lara Cardella ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1994

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When she won a literary prize for this slim debut novel in 1989, the 19-year-old Cardella was shunned by her own Sicilian village, whose inhabitants claimed that the brutal, gossipy small- town culture she depicted was an inaccurate reflection of their own. As a prepubescent, narrator Anna dreams of wearing pants rather than the mandatory dress or skirt, and her hopes lead her through several different phases. In the first, she decides to be a nun, since she believes that nuns wear pants underneath their habits. When she discovers that this is untrue, she sets her sights on being a man and latches onto a male cousin in order to imitate him, only to find that she is permanently lacking the necessary equipment. Finally, after her mother's offhand remark that pants are ``for men, or sluts,'' she apprentices herself to Angelina, the daughter of an engineer and the loosest woman in her high school. Cardella's writing and Di Carcaci's translation are forthright and amiable, although the story sometimes slides toward a young-adult tone. But Anna's honesty pulls it into the adult realm. For example, she recognizes Angelina's disdain for her, as when she takes a bath at Angelina's house and fails to drain the tub afterwards, then notes that in her own impoverished household they are forced to reuse precious water. When an uncle spots Anna kissing a boy in public, her parents beat her into unconsciousness, then confine her to the house. Finally, they arrange for her to stay with her father's sister and her husband, Vincenzo, who had molested Anna when she was nine. There are glitches here and there: Cardella attempts to wrap things up too quickly and is hazy about when her novel indeed takes place. Perhaps an introduction would have given Amercian readers a better understanding of the closed Sicilian society. A remarkably open, if occasionally amateurish, representation of a place where ``women can be wives and mothers but they can never be people.''

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994

ISBN: 1-55970-263-X

Page Count: 128

Publisher: Arcade

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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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.).