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KICKING

Dick's second novel (after Without Falling, 1988—not reviewed) begins with a clever nouvelle roman flourish but soon finds its own level as a pretentious, stilted melodrama set in the so-called art worlds of London and New York in the Eighties. Told from the perspective of a neurasthenic young art critic named Connie, this self-consciously cinematic narrative concerns an on-again, off-again love triangle that can't sustain the weight of such belabored analysis. The opening scene, in which Connie witnesses a suicide, provides an interesting exercise in context and perspective but finally has little to do with the main story. Jumping back and forth through time, Connie meditates on her friendship with artists Michael and Ruby, her friends since they were all so young, and pretty and brilliant, according to Connie. What they say and do and create, however, suggests a trio of sexually promiscuous, politically shallow, and artistically lame characters more concerned with acting like artists than producing anything of real value. Brooding Michael is given to excess (he takes lots of heroin) and says things like ``God, it's all so fucking bourgeois.'' Ruby, a fellow Brit, also walks on the wild side and espouses revolutionary chic ideology. Connie, herself ``succumbed to ennui,'' romances death but doesn't take as many drugs—she reads Sylvia Plath instead. Half-American, she too has everything paid for by Mummy and Daddy. Her experience of art is hardly hypercritical (``She was knocked out by the Warhol''), and her reflections on her relationships are surprisingly girlish. An extended episode about a $500 debt suggests that Connie might be even crazier than she or her creator realizes. Imagine Tama Janowitz's ``art scene'' without even an attempt at humor, and you begin to get the silly solemnity of this self- mythologizing novel whose main characters are an annoying, whiny bunch of poseurs.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-87286-282-8

Page Count: 256

Publisher: City Lights

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1993

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

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MAGIC HOUR

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

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