First novel set in northernmost Japan in 1903, when war is brewing with Russia. The impending war, however, seems to have little to do with Libby's protagonist, an apprentice innkeeper named Setsuo, usually referred to as ``the youth.'' While the youth's master is gone, a terrible blizzard sets in and a motley crew is snowbound, including the various exotic members of a theatrical troupe. A bearded man and a hunter also prepare to enter the inn, but at the last moment plunge onward in the storm. Their action seems suicidal, and, partly to impress a young woman in the troupe, Yukiku, and partly out of genuine concern, the youth chases after them. He witnesses the bearded man's murder of the hunter, but the bearded man spares the youth and tries to warn him of something. The youth in turn, warming his hands on the dead man's body, takes his purse and discovers a mysterious box. Murders ensue, as well as a quite literally steamy scene as the youth spies upon Yukiku in the inn's hot spring. Though questioned insistently by members of the troupe, the youth stubbornly denies knowledge of the box, thinking he could be linked to the theft of the dead man's purse. The youth is beaten and left for dead, then befriended by a samurai in league with the bearded man. The theatrical troupe are spies, it develops, and Yukiku an enemy seductress. The bearded man is a loyalist who returns with spring to explain that the youth has been a true patriot, shielding his country's war plans. ``Arise. You are reborn,'' the bearded man says. The youth accepts a reward and leaves the inn, his apprenticeship at an end. Mostly atmosphere, but it's a satisfyingly romantic atmosphere, like that of an old, swashbuckling boys' novel dropped down in Japan, with a dash of Yukio Mishima for good measure.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-55597-245-4
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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