Warmhearted (if a bit uneven) tale of a sensitive man’s journey through life.
A pleasing character study following the life of Joe Andreson, from his misadventures in high school to reflective middle age.
Although Joe narrates his tale, it is a story dominated by women, from his kind-hearted, widowed mother and his sophisticated lesbian aunt Beth (the three live together, gathering around the piano to sing show tunes) to the two young women who shape his adult life—Kristi Casey and Darva Pratt. In high school, Kristi is the golden girl—head cheerleader, honor student, feared and revered by all who come in contact with her ferocious smile. At turns cruel and alluring, Kristi takes a shine to Joe and the two have trysts in the AV room, a secret kept from Kristi’s boyfriend. Joe even keeps it from his best friend Darva, a gifted artist and bourgeoning bohemian with plans to escape 1970s Minneapolis for Paris. Darva does go to Paris, while Joe goes to college on a hockey scholarship. Kristi and Joe meet from time to time in rural motels, but their relationship is little more than a strange mix of Kristi’s confessions and impersonal sex. After graduation Kristi disappears, Joe inherits a grocery store and Darva returns from Europe, with tiny Flora in her arms. Though they maintain a platonic relationship, Darva and Joe live together and raise Flora, as Joe makes a success out of the market, thanks to his idiosyncratic approach to business. Meanwhile, Kristi reappears on the air as a right-wing evangelist doling out moral platitudes to her radio listeners. Joe and company are shocked by Kristi’s new persona, and yet the girl most likely to succeed at any cost still has a few surprises left for the folks back home. Most of Joe’s story is a real charmer—the questioning, sex-obsessed teen, the slightly lost 30 year old—but as the story creeps past middle age, Landvik (Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, 2003, etc.) seems to tire, and the narrative wraps up with the expected closing events.
Warmhearted (if a bit uneven) tale of a sensitive man’s journey through life.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-345-46837-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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