Thoroughly charming and sure to enrage the NRA, which is, of course, the point.
A sweet Philadelphia waitress takes on the pro-gun set.
Plump Paula Sherman, who waits tables in a modestly swell Center City restaurant when she should be singing professionally, accidentally drifts into the sights of the United Gun Association (UGA), America’s most powerful gun lobby, after her best friend dies in a street shooting. Understandably distraught, Paula blamed the killer rather than the handgun, just what the UGA wanted to hear. To her horror, Paula sees herself quoted out of context by not only Pennsylvania’s pro-gun senator but by the UGA. Her efforts to disclaim the remark and to remove her image from campaign ads and pro-gun advertising are fruitless. But the pro-gun coalition has underestimated the singing waitress. Determined to avenge the death of her friend and to put the lying bastards in their place, Paula finds a way to turn the guns on the gun-lovers, who, she observes, proudly identify themselves by placing UGA stickers on their automobiles. Wouldn’t those stickers make great targets for someone armed with—well, a pistol? Couldn’t Paula be that vigilante? She could indeed, but to be safe on the streets, she needs to whip herself into shape with a program of running, an activity that not only makes it possible to cover a great many streets looking for UGA stickers to shoot with the wee air gun she has bought, but also results in a new svelte figure. Even before her shooting of gun-lovers’ windshields is noticed by the city, it is noted by a neighboring journalist who keeps her secret until he is enlisted in the battle. And the battle catches fire. As Paula first runs and then rollerblades her way through Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, picking off the conspicuous UGA stickers, copy-cats in other cities, outraged by abuse of the Second Amendment, send the same message.
Thoroughly charming and sure to enrage the NRA, which is, of course, the point.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2007
ISBN: 1-60164-000-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Künati
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2006
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
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