A unique, emotional read that falls just short of its promise.
Stefanile’s debut novel traces a romance that transcends time, place, life and death.
World War II veteran “Jersey,” nicknamed in honor of his home state, returns to Greenville, N.J., a hero in the eyes of his neighbors, but he is haunted by the memory of a German soldier he shot in a church in Italy, and by the letter he failed to deliver to the soldier’s widow. Also troubled by a letter he never mailed to a woman that he loves, Jersey takes a job with the railroad, sorting through the company’s old records. One day he finds yet another letter, this one written by a mother on her deathbed and addressed to her Confederate soldier son Will Vollmer. Along with Jersey, the reader is transported to pre-Civil War Greenville, Ga., where a 5-year-old girl appears on the front porch of the Vollmer residence on New Year’s Day. The Vollmers raise young Mary as a daughter, but son Will and Mary’s feelings for one another are not those of a brother and sister. Will leaves a pregnant Mary behind when he goes to fight for the South, never dreaming that the combined forces of a fever and an awkward Union soldier would take his entire family from him in one day. Suffering from what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder, Will heads north, meeting Mary, his father, mother and child in previous and future incarnations. Sometimes confusing, sometimes a bit odd and sometimes downright bizarre, Will’s odyssey is consistently heart-wrenching. He ends his journey as a railroad worker in Greenville, N.J., communicating telepathically with Mary, and periodically encountering his loved ones inhabiting different forms. A unique love story with a surprising happily ever after, the story would be strengthened by more development of Jersey’s story, which seems an afterthought. Far more evocative than the Civil War scenes, Jersey’s post-World War II New Jersey is a memorable setting.
A unique, emotional read that falls just short of its promise.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2010
ISBN: 978-0615424569
Page Count: 210
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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