bookshelf

HAPPY DAYS, UNCLE SERGIO

Name: HAPPY DAYS, UNCLE SERGIO
Author: Magali Garcia Ramis
ISBN: 1-877727-52-0

by Magali Garcia Ramis ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1995

bookshelf

The first US appearance of a bestselling Puerto Rican debut novel, originally published in 1986, that tries hard for significance as it evokes close family ties. It's the 1950s, and precociously observant Lydia, the narrator, lives with her mother, brother, two unmarried aunts, and grandmother, Mama Sara, in an old house in a middle-class neighborhood. Her father died in WW II, and though uncles and male cousins are frequent visitors in this close-knit group, the women are in charge—until Uncle Sergio suddenly returns from New York. The family, including Sergio, discuss politics (they are divided evenly between nationalists and anticommunist pro-Americans); their Spanish forebears; and the changes taking place on the island as the American influence grows. But Uncle Sergio, meanwhile, is an intriguing mystery to the children, especially to Lydia, who eavesdrops on adult conversations to find out more about him; asks leading questions; and later observes a disturbing sexual encounter between him and the family maid. Uncle Sergio, more suggested than realized, adds a masculine and intellectual dimension to a ``life simply measured by schooldays, vacations and religious holidays.'' Though he returns to New York to continue his political work, he's responsible, the narrator claims, for changing her life: ``...before you arrived I could clearly identify the scents I like best...then I began to like your scent....later...others would be lying on top of me, but I would only be under you, always with you, only you inside, only your smell and your truth.'' Because of him, she says, she discovered her Puerto Rican identity—an identity that gave her and her family ``cohesion.'' One of those finely wrought but lifeless first novels that overflow with texture and period detail but shortchange their characters.

Pub Date: June 15, 1995

ISBN: 1-877727-52-0

Page Count: 164

Publisher: White Pine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

bookshelf

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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

bookshelf

Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.