A touching, intelligently plotted story of a couple’s struggle to have children.
Desperate for a baby, a husband and wife choose in vitro fertilization in Hercher’s debut novel.
For years, Bostonians John and Robin Hogan have tried in vain to conceive. Robin grieves each month as her period begins. The diagnosis is idiopathic infertility: “something was wrong, but no one knew what the hell it was.” Robin’s gay brother, Mickey, and his boyfriend, Caleb, provide them with loving and sometimes-humorous emotional support. John’s online business, Emoney, gets a lot of hits after a pricy Super Bowl ad and seems poised to take off. Hopeful that this signals a financially secure future, the Hogans consider in vitro fertilization, which is costly ($12,000 to $15,000) and risky for the mother. After Robin undergoes a series of injections, she produces eggs that become viable embryos; the unused ones are frozen and used by other couples. Meanwhile, the Hogans’ pregnancy struggle affects Mickey and Caleb, as they consider a deeper commitment—perhaps marriage—and they think about starting their own family using a surrogate. When Emoney fails, John is unemployed and dejected, and the family rapidly depletes its financial reserves; soon after John starts another Web-based venture, the Twin Towers fall. Meanwhile, Robin ponders the fate of the frozen embryos: Aren’t they her children, too? Hercher, an academic professional with a background in genetic counseling, delivers a strong, well-crafted novel which includes references to cutting-edge reproductive technology in passages that average readers will easily understand. She gently explores the ethics of IVF, probes vital questions on when human life begins and addresses religious beliefs without sermonizing. Robin’s emotionally harrowing and physically debilitating journey is utterly believable, as are the ensuing martial conflicts: Her focus is primarily on getting pregnant, while John’s focus is on her safety. The subplot involving Mickey and Caleb is particularly poignant as they face their own escalating relationship crisis, and the novel’s epilogue is a moving celebration of family.
A touching, intelligently plotted story of a couple’s struggle to have children.Pub Date: April 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-0988814004
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Herring River Press
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2013
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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