Rings true without being clichéd, a neat trick.
Debut novelist Ehrhorn works impressive CPR on a trope that has been done to death: the Sturm und Drang of surviving high school.
In 1960s-era Chicago, Talbot High School senior Kelly Elliott is living not the dream, but the nightmare. His acne is all but terminal; he has never had a date; he has just wised off to Joe Swedarsky, the class bully—and that’s just the start of his torments. His single mother, left by his feckless father years ago, has a sometime lover who is a cheater and dangerously abusive. His high school teachers are the typical mixed and sometimes-sadistic bag. There are the usual high school embarrassments, as when Kelly lets loose the fart heard ’round the gym right in front of Laura LeDuc, head cheerleader who seems so sweet but—he finally learns—is a player, a manipulator. He does find love, after a fashion, with Linda Martinsen, who is worthy of it. His real connection, however, is with Mary Harker (aka Ginny Dare), a stripper who understands him, anchors him, comforts him. These lessons are painful but necessary. Senior year does come to a merciful end, finding a newly reflective Kelly, a Kelly who has found a real measure of understanding and acceptance of hard truths. Ehrhorn writes well. One finds sentences like, “The series of life’s dominoes were continuing their cascade” to describe Kelly’s hapless, up-and-down life. The chapters are almost self-contained episodes, each contributing to Kelly’s education. An interesting point is that it is the women—Kelly’s mom, Linda Martinsen, and especially Mary Harker—who are his most valuable teachers, while the males—Swedarsky, Kelly’s long-gone father, the abusive Dan Phillips, and others—are the anti role models. The most poignant passages are those between Kelly and Mary Harker. The stripper with a heart of gold is a tired and strained cliché, but Ehrhorn pulls it off beautifully and tenderly. What finally happens to Mary is a godawful kick in the gut but absolutely faithful to the story.
Rings true without being clichéd, a neat trick.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-92846-2
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Madijean Press
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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