Good, domestic drama is Rice's chosen field, and she knows every acre of it (Blue Moon, 1993; Secrets of Paris, 1991, etc.). Her sixth novel bears all her usual signposts: family tragedies, great romance, and writing so strong you wish she'd trust it to let her explore new pastures as well. Anne Davis, a young woman still spinning from both the accidental death of her four-year-old daughter and the breakup of her marriage, has left New York City and returned to the New England island where she grew up. On her first night back, a fire breaks out in her childhood home. Anne rushes into the flames to save a memento of her daughter's life and has to be rescued by Thomas Devlin, a firefighter who has scars, both physical and emotional, from an earlier blaze that killed his wife. As the old family place is being rebuilt, Anne slowly, painstakingly, begins to rebuild her own life, too, with the help of Thomas, the well- meaning interference of older sister Gaby, and the general nosiness of the whole island population. A final grisly tragedy allows Anne the chance to help save the life of someone dear to herthe chance she never had when her daughter diedand gives her enough peace to face the future again. As ever, Rice creates fine characters (even if Anne is just a shade too noble to be true), and she writes wonderfully romantic, steaming seduction scenes. While the many tragedies of this latest novel seem laid on with a heavy hand, she shows what she's really capable of in the small moments: the way two sisters talk to each other in a perfect mix of affection and envy; how the smell of smoke gets trapped in an attic's rafters; and, finally, how a child offers a homely, heartrending depiction of paradise. Rice's home fires burn brighter than most, and they leave more than a few smoldering moments to remember.
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-09728-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1995
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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