A wickedly funny send-up of the sexual revolution and its discontents.
Lonely, single men search for love in the 1980s in this hilarious battle narrative from the war between the sexes.
Ronald Reagan has just been elected president, John Lennon has just been shot and 35-year-old Ray Powell has just been dumped by fickle hippie goddess Lana in a definitive finale to the sexual golden age of the countercultural '70s. Seeking a fresh start, he moves from the college-town Shangri-la of Crystal City to nearby Toledo, Ohio, to teach high school and find another woman. Alas, Ray, who prides himself on his male feminism, is at sea in a new sexual ethos that values assertiveness and earning power over sensitivity. He finds nothing but cynicism and tawdry hookups in the circle of hell that is the Toledo singles' scene, and the few women he connects with–such as Judy, a 17-year-old student with whom he strikes up an awkward romance–prove resoundingly inappropriate. Tragically, he gets plenty of advice from his bachelor buddies: Scott, an eternal student with a yen for tall, domineering women; Frank, a newly celibate ladies' man who now considers sex a "holocaust"; and the permanently lovelorn Bert, whose idea of a smooth come-on is to surprise his inamorata by removing his clothes and draping a towel over his face. When all else fails, the Zen bromides he gleans from Kung Fu reruns–"Male and female are like coal and flame"–guide his steps. Durstin writes in a wonderfully observant prose that's sardonic and sympathetic, with a perfect ear for the cultural obsessions of the early Reagan era. He frames Ray's story as a mythic "journey" that affords the author a sly parody of the Men’s Movement. As they respond to a chaos of mixed messages in a profoundly confused age, his characters' delusions–and their fumbling, convoluted pickup maneuvers–are as poignant as they are uproarious.
A wickedly funny send-up of the sexual revolution and its discontents.Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-578-04925-0
Page Count: 249
Publisher: LD Media
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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