THE WAR AT TROY

Name: THE WAR AT TROY
Author: Lindsay Clarke
ISBN: 0-312-33657-8

by Lindsay Clarke ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 17, 2004

Clarke uses a modern idiom that’s sometimes jarring (“Hera hissed, ‘Don’t you dare take any notice of that mindless bitch’...

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Whitbread-winner Clarke (The Chymical Wedding, 1989, etc.) offers a fresh and lively retelling of the Trojan War: a kind of ur-text of the events that made Homer famous.

Peleus and Thetis provide a good example of the most dangerous part of planning a wedding: the guest list. They blackball Eris, the Goddess of Discord, who takes her revenge by tossing a golden apple marked “To the Fairest” into the banquet hall. Naturally, Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite all go ballistic and turn to Zeus to settle the dispute—which he does by passing the buck to Paris, the most beautiful man in the world, and asking him to judge. By choosing Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, Paris earns the hand of Helen, the most beautiful woman alive—and that’s where all hell breaks loose. Helen is the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, who flies into a royal rage when Paris abducts his bride to Troy. Menelaus invokes a prenuptial agreement he’d made with all of Helen’s prior suitors (who had agreed in advance to support whomever she chooses to wed), and the whole of Greece goes to war against Troy. You probably remember the story, with all the familiar characters here: the noble warriors Hector, Achilles, and Patroclus; the kings Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Laomedon; the wily Odysseus; and the resourceful Aeneas. We get as far as Odysseus’s breach of the walls of Troy with his wooden horse, although the narrator (a certain Phemius of Ithaca) lets us know that he was present at the hero’s homecoming—so a sequel is probably in the offing.

Clarke uses a modern idiom that’s sometimes jarring (“Hera hissed, ‘Don’t you dare take any notice of that mindless bitch’ ”) but never ridiculous, and he manages to keep the large cast of characters from stumbling all over each other on the page—more than can be said for Homer.

Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2004

ISBN: 0-312-33657-8

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

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.