Succeeds when it’s silly, fails when it attempts dramatic weight.
Deliciously funny, if uneven sixth novel by Wickham (The Gatecrasher, 2000, etc.) follows three young British career women, just girlfriends at heart, as they bond, break-up, and come happily together again through tumultuous life changes.
Candice Brewin, Roxanne Miller, and Maggie Phillips, who toil together in the editorial offices of an upscale magazine, the Londoner, meet for drinks on the first of every month. Witty and wicked, each of these charmers has a distinctive persona and a personal problem. Goodhearted Candice is the writer, laboring under the revelation that her father (after his sudden death in a car crash) was a con man, a fraud, and a cad. Roxanne is the tough, hard-drinking broad who eschews sentimentality, works freelance on travel pieces, and has been carrying on a six-year affair with “Mr. Married with Kids,” whose identity she keeps secret from even her closest friends. Maggie, the magazine’s high-powered editor, is nine months pregnant, married to a millionaire, and about to leave London for the life of a country matron, “making coffee for a series of new, vibrant friends with cute babies dressed in designer clothes.” At first, these personable and empathetic protagonists seem in control and on top. But Maggie soon finds life outside the city dreary and lonely. Then Roxanne’s lover, who turns out to be Londoner’s publisher, sends her into a tailspin when he cuts her loose without telling her he’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Meanwhile, Candice runs into Heather Trelawney, a schoolmate whose family lost everything because of Candice’s father. Trying to make amends, Candice takes the girl under her wing and sets in motion a familiar but still terrifying scenario in which Heather systematically sets out to ruin Candice’s life. The friends lose patience with themselves, and each other, as misunderstandings abound and good intentions go astray.
Succeeds when it’s silly, fails when it attempts dramatic weight.Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-28192-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
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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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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