Southern charm, mystery-lite and the details of theater life converge in Shaffer’s likable third novel (Ladies of Garrison...
A pleasant excursion into the heart and soul of theater life involving two women who become the mysterious inheritors of an old opera house.
When Katie and Randa receive letters from a Georgia lawyer informing them they are the beneficiaries in a will, it seems the two have no connection—Katie is a native New Yorker and a scriptwriter for the soap her mother made famous, and Miranda is a business manager for spoiled Hollywood actors. But after a few days together in Georgia, the two find what has always eluded them—family history. Helped by the strange coincidences uniting them (both are named for Shakespearean characters, both were raised by a single parent, an actor), the two women form a tentative bond as they discover they are the new owners of the Venable Opera House, a 100-year-old theater that was once the pride of now-run-down Massonville. They are enchanted by the beautiful building, but plan on selling the money pit to Mike Killian, who’ll soon tear it down to make way for condos. Can Katie and Randa really let that happen? Randa’s 11-year-old daughter Susie is betting not, and has found the theater’s history in hopes that sentimentality will win out over business sense. Half of the novel traces the not altogether happy rise of the Venable clan, a family of actors, drinkers, tough ladies and louts who managed to keep the theater running for nearly a century. Matriarch Juliet acquired the theater under criminal circumstances, her son-in-law Edward kept it going in the Depression by playing the same hammy part his whole life (and keeping his homosexual affairs discreet), while Olivia stole from her children to keep it going in the ’70s. Though essential for solving the mystery of Katie and Randa’s benefactor, the Venable flashbacks are the novel’s weak spot, lacking the color and detail of the periods in which they’re set. Nevertheless, Shaffer (Ladies of Garrison Garden, 2005, etc.) has a nice touch with characters and the feel-good ending doesn’t disappoint.
Southern charm, mystery-lite and the details of theater life converge in Shaffer’s likable third novel (Ladies of Garrison Garden, 2005, etc.).Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6063-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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