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NEED

Name: NEED
Author: Lawrence David
ISBN: 0-679-43433-X

by Lawrence David ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 16, 1994

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A surfeit of detail and a slow-moving plot hobble this second novel by the author of Family Values (1993). The premise is plausible and provocative: Tightly wound psychiatrist Pam Thompson discovers that her husband is having an affair with one of her clients, the suicidal Joan Dwyer, and sets out on a high-stakes quest to preserve both Dwyer and her marriage. But the need to control her emotions as well as her patient causes Thompson to mismanage the therapy, driving Dwyer ever closer to killing herself. There's plenty of room for intrigue as Pam and husband Dennis Perry alternately try to wound each other and to resurrect their relationship, while the guileless Dwyer serves as their field of battle. But David's over-rationalized schema leaves little room for the sort of surprises that would make it all fun. In all-too-appropriate keeping with the endlessly speculative nature of Thompson's psychiatric practice, much of the action is anticipated before it takes place. Rather than offering readers opportunities to make judgments or connections, David allows them only to work through a welter of agonized reflection and rationalization by all three characters. The author is conversant enough with the therapeutic process, but his workmanlike prose lacks urgency or insight, and what sex there is adds little heat to the proceedings. Excessive amounts of minutia about the characters' lives—TV shows, brand names, gourmet food—seem to be intended as cultural criticism, but such descriptions muffle the narrative's interesting turns (of which there are several). Much of the best action comes too late, after the reader's patience has worn thin. Some sharp-eyed producer will purchase movie rights to Need, hone it to essentials, inject a good deal more eroticism, and create a fine thriller; the book itself offers too few fireworks. (Author tour)

Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1994

ISBN: 0-679-43433-X

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.