bookshelf

BREAKING THE TRUST

Name: BREAKING THE TRUST
Author: Lucy Clare
ISBN: 0-525-94710-8

by Lucy Clare ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2003

Very familiar fare—in a second from the British author of Hoping for Hope (2001).

bookshelf

Squabbling family copes with death and disillusionment.

Informed by their aged but sprightly mother Clattie that their father has been felled by a heart attack, Jack Palmer’s grown children begin to whine—in a quiet, tight-lipped, veddy British sort of way. The complaining never lets up even after Clattie reveals a shocking family skeleton: early in their marriage, a woman Jack loved before he met Clattie gave birth to his child, whom he acknowledged and supported while keeping the secret from his subsequent children. Ralph, arrogant eldest of the legitimate Palmers, is aghast to find that he has a half-brother who had the temerity to precede him in the all-important birth order. Hugh, now a successful chef but definitely in touch with his inner middle child, is still struggling with issues of self-worth. He remembers only too well eying the dish of roast potatoes as a young boy, desperately willing there to be enough for him to have a second helping: What if this surprising new brother competes with him for the emotional potatoes? Will Pippa, their born-again younger sister, greet the prodigal with open arms and Christian love, or will she too raise hitherto unexplored issues of trust? Titus is nonplussed by all the ado, though a bit sad for his old dad. He’s a practical sort, an upholsterer and furniture restorer with a down-to-earth Australian wife and a punky teenaged daughter named Summer. “What sort of name is that?” Ralph spits. “They’re all so . . . so unlike us.” But mere aversion to antipodean accents can’t stop these mismatched siblings from opening a restaurant together and fulfilling Hugh’s lifelong dream (see above: enough potatoes). Titus designs the décor, sundry spouses and kids help out, and Clattie comes into her own at last. Everyone comes to terms with everything sooner or later, and please pass the salt, etc.

Very familiar fare—in a second from the British author of Hoping for Hope (2001).

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-525-94710-8

Page Count: 306

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

bookshelf

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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

- BOOK REVIEW
YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

bookshelf

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

bookshelf

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.