Ellman’s use of visuals and wordplay, as well as her comic sensibility, is very much a matter of taste, though her tone...
Another self-consciously erudite comedy from Ellmann (Doctors and Nurses, 2006, etc.), this time a romance about a plastic surgeon whose love for a good woman helps him take stock.
On Christmas Eve—the novel is organized by holidays—plastic surgeon Harrison Hanafan slips on the ice in Midtown Manhattan and sprains his ankle. Having recently broken up with his girlfriend, Gertrude, a rich art lover with no redeeming characteristics except her son (born by parthenogenesis), Harrison recuperates at home for weeks with his newly adopted cat, Bubbles, playing music and making lists as is his wont. An invitation that arrives in the mail to give a speech at his old high school causes him to call his sister Bee, who escaped her abusive husband and is now a sculptor in England, and to ruminate about his unhappy childhood. Afraid of speechmaking, he hires a coach who turns out to be the plump, middle-aged mystery woman who saved him on Christmas Eve by putting him in a cab. Love blooms between Harrison and Mimi, full of bons mots and more lists that give the author a chance to share her sociological and cultural insights ad nauseam. The romance does face bumps in the road. Gertrude arrives and tries to seduce Harrison just as Mimi walks in. Then, there is the random murder of Bee, shot by a crazed ex-soldier in a rage against women. And Bubbles is run over but survives. The skimpy plot of Harrison’s emotional and moral growth is encased in thick layers of social commentary, one-liner repartee and those endless lists. The sense of being preached to is strong throughout. And excepting the lyrics to some lovely old songs like “Joe Hill” and “She’ll Be Comin' Round the Mountain,” the appendix with Harrison’s feminist manifesto is mostly annoying.
Ellman’s use of visuals and wordplay, as well as her comic sensibility, is very much a matter of taste, though her tone strongly implies that the readers who don’t get her are merely plebeians anyway.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62040-020-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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