A fine historical novel and a witty, effervescent satire of media saturation.
A comic odyssey through the world of 18th-century London trash journalism.
In Brill’s (Live @ Five, 2013) latest novel, handsome, personable Leeds Merriweather is employed by Charles McNabb, the ferret-faced editor of the London Tattler-Tribune in 1765. Leeds is a patterer, a performer who stands at busy crossroads and dramatizes the top, most lurid stories for passing crowds. “Life is constantly delivering important lessons,” he realizes, some “more painful than others,” though one lesson he refuses to accept is McNabb’s callous pronouncement: “You were made to patter, not to publish. That is your proper lot in life. Accept it.” Ever since he was a boy at Wittyglib Manor, his family’s ancestral home, Leeds has dreamed of writing and publishing his own material, not hawking the headlines of others. He’s still frustrated by his boss’s judgment when he happens to encounter the famous Benjamin Franklin. Leeds notices that he has the kind of face you might engrave on a bank note, then stops himself: “Rubbish, I know. What country would be insane to the point of putting a commoner on its currency?” In the course of their conversation, Leeds conceives his “grand invention”: instead of shouting headlines, he’ll perform a newscast, complete with commercial breaks, every night, for the paying patrons of the Tamed Shrew tavern. The proprietress, a widow named Anastasia Fullbright, eventually warms to the moneymaking prospects of the gimmick; in one of his many clever winks at pop culture, Brill echoes Billy Joel: “It was a pretty good crowd for a Saturday and Mrs. Fullbright gave me a smile. She knew it was me they were coming to see.” Leeds’ plan is complicated not only by his forlorn love for the unattainable Kate Jasper, but also by the rise of rivals to his newscasting act. Brill juggles all these elements with considerable skill, and his Dickensian London is vividly evoked.
A fine historical novel and a witty, effervescent satire of media saturation.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9888643-4-4
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Black Tie Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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