THE GRIEVERS

Name: THE GRIEVERS
Author: Marc Schuster
ISBN: 978-1-57962-263-3

by Marc Schuster ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2012

Schuster’s off-kilter portrait of a guy unsatisfied like the old Replacements song adds pivotal bite to the pre-programmed...

bookshelf

When a prep-school classmate dies, a graduate student past his sell-by date must face his escalating anxiety over growing up.

After lightly eviscerating the life of a suburban housewife in his fiction debut, Schuster (The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl, 2009) turns his attention to the wilderness years of 20-somethings in Philly. Grad student Charley is elbow-deep in wallpapering with his wife Karen when a phone call idly informs him that Billy Chin, a former classmate from Saint Leonard’s Academy, committed suicide by leaping off a local bridge. It’s quite the wake-up call for a young man mired in the quicksand of his dissertation and a dead-end job promoting a bank in a giant dollar-sign costume. In a neat metaphor, he’s regularly blown off his feet by passing semis. This means we often learn more about Charley’s unstable personality through internal monologues and cell conversations inside the suit than during the Hamlet-esque paralysis of his life. To assuage his fears, Charley calls his Marx Brothers-quoting best friend Neil Pogue and their gang of comrades from Saint Leonard’s to dream up a tribute to their fallen friend. Five bills in hand, Charley reacquaints himself with former teacher Phil Ennis, now the school’s greed-motivated, self-important development director. Charley’s lack of backbone lets old rival Frank Dearborn turn what was intended to be a tasteful tribute to Billy into a garish festival complete with performance art. Charley is not a nice guy but his spiraling tumble into self-awareness is a wince-worthy exercise in sympathy. “All because I refused to do anything,” Charley admits. “Because doing something meant change. Because change meant growing up. Because growing up meant leaving so much behind.”

Schuster’s off-kilter portrait of a guy unsatisfied like the old Replacements song adds pivotal bite to the pre-programmed humor of his ensemble.

Pub Date: May 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-57962-263-3

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Permanent Press

Review Posted Online: March 18, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

bookshelf

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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 CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

bookshelf

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.