A startling, mordantly funny portrait of contemporary Britain, and Drabble's (The Gates of Ivory, 1992, etc.) best and most assured novel in years. At the heart of the action is Frieda Palmer, the increasingly eccentric matriarch of an eminently successful family. Frieda has gained fame for her eloquent, prophetic works on feminism (including The Matriarchy of War); her children are also variously successful: Gogo is a much-in-demand neurologist, married to an up- and-coming liberal politician; Rosemary is an influential figure in arts funding; and Daniel is a quietly accomplished barrister. The three, their spouses, and their children have gathered, as the story begins, to discuss what, if anything, can be done with their intemperate mother. She has recently engaged in a buffoonish battle with the government over taxes. And she has sold the family house, and bought a rambling, shabby hotel in Exmoor, on a cliff above the sea, where she lives alone. What will she do next? What of their reputations? And what of their inheritance? Their efforts to somehow assert control over Frieda's life eventually draw in their own children (including the free-spirited Emily, Daniel's daughter, and the brilliant, somber young Ben, Gogo's son) and set in motion a variety of subplots revealing the quiet hypocrisies at the heart of many of these lives and offering, in the person of Frieda, one of the more complex and original of Drabble's creations. A zestful, angry figure, fighting age, and struggling to come to terms with the horrific secret concerning her own marriage that she has long suppressed, Frieda, often fierce, arouses exasperation and affection in equal measure. This droll riff on King Lear manages to be both an intriguing portrait of a difficult woman and a sustained lampoon on the self-absorbed, righteous behavior of the British elite, related in prose of sustained vigor. Satire and melodrama, nicely mixed, and a thoroughly satisfying entertainment.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-15-100363-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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