Light and life-affirming fare about letting go of worry and embracing uncertainty.
The further adventures of a tightly wound Manhattan businesswoman and her infuriatingly easygoing father.
Brett apparently has a strong following in her native Australia, but it may not be so for much longer if she keeps moving her characters to New York. Her heroine, Ruth Rothwax, is an Aussie woman of Polish-Jewish descent—her father is an Auschwitz survivor—now relocated to Manhattan, where she runs a thriving letter-writing and greeting-card business. In Too Many Men (2001), Ruth brought her father Edek back to Poland, where she spent the whole time fretting about why he wasn’t more upset by revisiting that den of anti-Semitism; there were times when Edek’s Auschwitz experience seemed to bother Ruth more than it did him. Now Edek has moved to New York and is working in Ruth’s office, where he quickly drives her crazy with his constant scheming and enthusiastic over-ordering of supplies. Ruth’s agitation hits stratospheric heights, though, when Zofia and Walentyna, a pair of widows whom the two had become friendly with in Poland (Zofia and Edek getting more than friendly), show up in New York to live with Edek, and get Green Cards, and in the process manage to bring out all of Ruth’s cattiest tendencies. The irony of the situation is that even as Ruth is railing against Zofia and Walentyna, she is attempting to start a womens’ discussion group the primary purpose of which is to combat such tendencies. Given that much of Brett’s narrative is a headache-inducing ride through Ruth’s encyclopedic array of neuroses—this is a woman who brings steamed vegetables in a Ziploc bag to restaurants—it’s a relief when Edek and his widows (a chaotically appealing trio) announce to Ruth that they want to open a restaurant and need just a smidge of funding. This is a faster, leaner work than Brett’s previous effort. If only the author could find her other characters as interesting as she does Ruth.
Light and life-affirming fare about letting go of worry and embracing uncertainty.Pub Date: July 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-050569-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
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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