An ambitious if too carefully calibrated second novel (Tales of the Master Race, 1991) chronicling the life and often perilous times—over the course of three generations—of one Jewish-American family. The story begins in 1967 with the fatal heart attack of family patriarch Evan Eichenbaum—a 1920's Hungarian immigrant, along with wife Vera—and then moves back through the past before fast- forwarding to 1993. Along the way, letters and affidavits are used to give a not always convincing feel of history in the making, as the Eichenbaums confront US immigration authorities, a son's 1940's wartime sacrifice, and the ravages of AIDS in the 90's. Once Vera and Evan accumulate enough money working in New York's garment district, they move to Cleveland and open a successful clothing store. Their three children—Hankus, Teddy, and Joy—regard themselves as Americans, and at first can't understand their parents' mounting anxiety about unfolding events in Europe. As the Nazis advance, Evan and Vera desperately try to get permission for their families to join them, but a rigidly applied quota system and unfounded allegations about a brother-in-law's political leanings confound them. Moved by his parents' concern, Hankus runs away to Canada, enlists, and is killed in battle. When the US enters the war, Evan, fearing that he might lose Teddy, too, buys a farm and insists his son run it, thereby making him ineligible for the draft. This step irrevocably embitters Teddy, who will refuse to visit either his dying father or, later, Joy's son, Hal, who's dying of AIDS. With the emphasis on wartime events and the reactions of Joy and her parents, the 1993 section is rushed, hurried through, seemingly there only to round out the book's premise. A novel with a resonant theme that should tug the heart strings but disappointingly doesn't. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 24, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-017144-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
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.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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