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INDIGO

Name: INDIGO
Author: Marina Warner
ISBN: 0-671-70156-8

by Marina Warner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1992

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From British writer Warner (The Lost Father, 1989, etc.), an uneven—if politically correct—reinterpretation of The Tempest that's weighed down even further by heavy-handed dollops of magic realism. When the young and second wife of her distinguished grandfather, Sir Anthony Everard, gives birth to beautiful Xanthe, Miranda, a child herself, hears an old princess at the christening wish upon the baby a ``kind of imperviousness—the heartlessness of a statue.'' Having neatly indicated mythic and legendary undertones, the story then moves back to the 17th century—to the Caribbean island where the Everard family made its fortune in indigo and sugar. There, island sorceress Sycorax miraculously rescues a baby from a drowned slave, establishes her own compound at the end of the island where she grows indigo, and advises the islanders. The baby, the original Caliban, is soon joined by another outcast, an Arawak baby girl called Ariel. Eventually, Caliban, haunted by his African roots, leaves—but Ariel stays, only to be seduced by the first Kit Everard come to claim the island for his own. Their Eden threatened, the islanders rebel, a now-returned Caliban is killed, and Everard and his men are saved by a fluke. Forward, then, to the 20th century when Xanthe and Miranda, different in temperament and experience, are invited to the island to celebrate the anniversary of the first Everard landing. Xanthe makes a marriage of convenience and sets about restoring the family fortunes through tourism, but the islanders resent her efforts. A revolt breaks out; Xanthe, who finds love too late, is killed—a sort of long-deferred expiation of Everard guilt; and Miranda, returning to London, marries a black actor and finds happiness. The tempest seems finally over. Better on the past than on the present, with the story coming most alive when Warner describes Sycorax and the pristine island. Otherwise: too much pretentious profundity and polemical handwringing.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-671-70156-8

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ESMOND AND ILIA
by Marina Warner

- BOOK REVIEW
FORMS OF ENCHANTMENT
by Marina Warner

- BOOK REVIEW
ONCE UPON A TIME
by Marina Warner

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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...

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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

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.