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THE THREE MISS MARGARETS

Name: THE THREE MISS MARGARETS
Author: Louise Shaffer
ISBN: 0-375-50852-X

by Louise Shaffer ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 2003

First fiction endangered by a life-threatening case of exposition.

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Old murder haunts a rural Georgia community, in a debut from TV writer and soap actress Shaffer.

Some think the three Margarets know what happened—but the old ladies said all they had to say a long time ago. A New York journalist working on a book about the world-famous scientist Vashti Johnson, who grew up in Charles Valley, picks up Laurel McReady, a major-haired divorcée with a big mouth, at a bar and gets her to explain. She starts with the story of L’il Bit (a.k.a. Margaret Elizabeth), the hopelessly plain, too-tall, galumphing daughter of Harrison Banning III, whose radical politics and NAACP membership scandalized everyone in town. Then there’s Dr. Maggie, an in-the-closet lesbian, whose do-gooding knows no color. (Maggie’s childhood friend Lottie was black, and Maggie never got over her guilt about getting a fine education when Lottie couldn’t.) These two befriended the much-younger Peggy, a white-trash goddess, after she was raped by Grady Garrison, a brute whose rich parents always indulged him. Later, she married Grady’s father, old Dalton Garrison, who never knew about the rape until years after their May-December union. Moving right along, Laurel explains that her ne’er-do-well father died mysteriously on the same night as Richard Johnson, who married Lottie’s daughter Nella. Richard Johnson, black and proud in a way that got white folks riled, was run over after an altercation with Grady, apparently over the favors of sweet but stupid Nella, who left town with her own daughter, Vashti, shortly thereafter. The three Margarets saw to Vashti’s education, and the smart little girl grew up to become a brilliant scientist. But she came back home, dying of brain cancer, to commit suicide, and it’s been whispered that the three Margarets were there when she did. Eventually, Laurel gets out the whole story of the three old ladies, in mind-boggling detail.

First fiction endangered by a life-threatening case of exposition.

Pub Date: April 8, 2003

ISBN: 0-375-50852-X

Page Count: 324

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
SERENDIPITY
by Louise Shaffer

- BOOK REVIEW
FAMILY ACTS
by Louise Shaffer

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LADIES OF GARRISON GARDENS
by Louise Shaffer

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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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.