This potentially poignant story of misplaced emotional attachments and misremembered pasts falters under its wispy tone.
Under the looming shadow of Y2K, the very proper Faith Bass Darling hauls all of her priceless family possessions onto her front lawn for a very improper yard sale in Rutledge’s debut novel.
Surprised and delighted to catch sight of the reclusive Faith, neighbors and strangers descend upon the Darlings’ lawn to snap up Tiffany lamps and Spode china for quarters. Alarmed less by Faith’s evident Alzheimer’s than by the shocking loss of capital, Bobbie Ann Blankenship rushes over to save what she can. Now sole proprietor of the Yesteryear Antique Shop, Bobbie plans to keep Faith’s possessions safe from unscrupulous buyers until Faith consents to a dignified estate sale, or until Faith’s daughter, Claudia, comes home. But first, Bobbie might just take that mysterious elephant clock—the one item Faith does not want to sell. Claudia hasn’t been home in 20 years, not since she hid a certain family ring, a ring passed down from her great-great-grandmother Belle, a ring replete with a three-carat diamond surrounded by seed pearls, a ring inscribed Love Eternal, a ring hidden in a desk on the Darlings’ lawn. A failed Buddhist, Claudia doesn’t want the ring for itself but for the chance it offers to invest in her dream of becoming part-owner of an upscale fitness club. Once home, Claudia must confront her mother’s illness, as well as the return of her first love, Deputy John Jasper Johnson. With the help of John Jasper, Bobbie, Father George and Dr. Peabody, Claudia begins to understand her mother, her mother’s illness and their relationship. Faith herself confronts the memories of her past as she moves from room to room, object to object. Those memories contain some dark family secrets having to do with the deaths of her husband, Claude Angus Darling, and her son, Mike.
This potentially poignant story of misplaced emotional attachments and misremembered pasts falters under its wispy tone.Pub Date: April 26, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-15719-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Amy Einhorn/Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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