Another mad fantasy by Foos (Portrait of the Walrus by a Young Artist, 1997, etc.), who here imagines the complications attending the birth of the first human clone. You might think that the absence of fathers would simplify things considerably down at Family Court. Think again. Maxi Dublin, in her mid-30s, got the idea that she would like to be a mother before it was too late. A cat breeder, Maxi is unmarried and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, but her assistant Jerry is young and virile—if gay—and seems capable of being seduced, so Maxi has him over for dinner one night. Things don—t go exactly as planned, but nevertheless Maxi soon discovers that something is growing in her womb, and in due course she delivers a healthy baby girl. Jerry, however, isn—t the father. In fact, no one is: the baby is a clone of Maxi, the first successful human clone in history. Suddenly Maxi and her baby Middle are at the center of a media whirlwind, with scientists, philosophers, and politicians from every corner of the globe demanding to know how Maxi did it and whether she should be feted or condemned. Maxi’s mother Minnie steps in, too, claiming that the baby is rightfully hers: Since Middle is Maxie’s clone (i.e., since she’s identical to Maxie), she’s actually Minnie’s daughter. Got that? The legal claim is pretty thin, but this is a new field, after all. So Minnie takes matters into her own hands and kidnaps the baby. Suddenly the HMOs, eager to learn how to clone people, join the fray: Unless the baby’s returned and offered for medical examination, all coverage will be dropped nationwide. Poor Maxi. She just wants her baby/self back, so they can live a normal life together. As if there was ever half a chance in the first place. Funny and sharp, though a bit labored in its own sense of relevance and lacking the light touch of Foos’s earlier romps.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-100417-X
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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