An extremely likable book.
The hero of Homes’s latest novel (after Music for Torching, 1999)—a work of guarded but very real optimism and, ultimately, of redemption—is Richard Novak, a California-style Scrooge.
Richard is a friendless, divorced Los Angeles investor who has so single-mindedly worked to create extravagant wealth that he has become estranged from mankind. For Richard, the wake-up call is not a minatory ghost but a pain that bends him double and sends him to the ER, where he realizes there is no one he can call who would really care. The novel charts Richard's gradual reawakening to the needs of others and the pleasure of their company. With the innocence of a newborn, he befriends the Middle Eastern owner of a donut shop; a woman weeping in the produce aisle of a supermarket (whom he treats to a week of spa treatments); and his next-door neighbor. Having warmed up to strangers, Richard struggles to re-establish contact first with his younger brother, a scientist living in Boston, and then with his sharp-tongued ex-wife and his teenaged son. Narratives about the very wealthy often have a glow of limitless possibility that verges on enchantment, and here, when Richard's house is menaced by an encroaching sinkhole, he lifts his de Kooning off the wall and rents an all-white house in Malibu. Not only are the cast-iron frying pans white-enameled, the sexual harness mounted in the guestroom ceiling is all white, too. That close to L.A., such loony details are plausible enough, but Homes occasionally skitters into realms so odd that the hypnotic spell of her narrative is broken. Could anyone believe that firefighters, battling the blaze that destroys the Malibu rental, had seen “the infamous mystery cat—a large animal some believe maybe be the sole surviving saber-toothed cat” among the flames? Deeper satisfaction derives from her characters’ sudden insights, as when Richard imagines that if he calls out, his brother will come to comfort him. There is a whole lifetime of change in that simple moment of understanding that indicates how far Richard has traveled toward redemption.
An extremely likable book.Pub Date: May 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-03493-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
