More quasi-feminist Sturm und Drang from a certified mistress of the genre (Her Mother's Daughter, 1987, etc.), this featuring four grown half-sisters reunited to care for the elderly father who cheerfully abused but failed to love them. Take one Frigid Intellectual (Elizabeth, a 50-something assistant secretary of the treasury); one Dizzy Socialite (Mary, a simpering, middle-aged divorcÇe); one Middle-Class Housewife (Alex, an empty-nester who longs to commune with God); and one Young Woman of Color (Ronnie, grad student and illegitimate daughter of her father's maid), mix them together, and you have one Total Woman for the 90's. French, however, seeks drama in keeping her stereotypes separate but closeted together and letting them bicker for several hundred pages. The four females, having been raised separately by different mothers, meet at the mansion of their elderly father- -Quintessential White Guy Stephen Upton, a mover and shaker in Republican circles and an entertainer of presidents and kings—to decide on his future care in the wake of a debilitating stroke. While Upton languishes in the hospital, the half-sisters occupy his mansion outside Boston, fencing warily with one another at first, then tentatively comparing notes and learning, to their own amazement, if not the reader's, that they were each in turn raped, terrorized, and otherwise tormented by their supposedly refined father. As Upton returns for in-home care, these silly sisters, who've moved from entertaining spiteful thoughts of one another (``She's good looking but getting fat,'' ``Ditzy little housewife,'' etc.) to bursting into frequent tears and embracing on a moment's notice, decide to put their monster-father through a secret trial. The expression of their long-suppressed rage will make them rich beyond all expectation—and the ultimate survivors. A book that begins with ``Women can hurt you just as much as men!'' and ends with ``My father's mansion, my prison. Go, Ronnie'' has little to offer in the way of fresh ideas. A musty, messy fairy tale with plenty of passion but no style.
Pub Date: Jan. 10, 1994
ISBN: 0-316-29390-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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