Italian author Brelich, whose previous book focused on the biblical Noah's post-deluge alcoholism (Navigator of the Flood, not reviewed), now tackles the conjugal union of Abraham and Sarah in a verbosely written ``novelized essay.'' Actually, Brelich (191082) sees the relationship as a sort of mÇnage Ö trois among Abraham, Sarah, and God: Abraham takes the role of submissive subordinate (sometimes to God, other times to Sarah); Sarah plays the first stereotypical frigid Jewish princess; and God appears as a somewhat muddled and histrionic divinity. The story focuses on the events leading up to the birth of Isaac. It begins charmingly with God appearing to Abraham after an absence of 14 years and Abraham noting that divine revelations are ominous when everything is going well. God then informs Abraham that he and Sarah are to have an heir, at which Abraham laughs—they are both nearly 100 years old—angering his creator. When Sarah hears the news, she also laughs, but according to Brelich, it is God who has the last laugh—on humanity. Culling the story from the Bible, commentaries, and his own invention, the author manages to tell his readers what they probably already knew from their own reading of the text—that Abraham was a wimp, Sarah a witch, and God a sometimes capricious manipulator (although it's not usually presented that way in Sunday school). Brelich's dry wit amuses at first, but the essay succeeds in subordinating the novel here, and 229 pages is rather long for an essay. Brelich does make some interesting points about God's relationship with humanity, why the three angels handled Abraham and Sodom in the same mission, and why the Abimelech incident is more than just a rehash of the earlier Pharaoh episode. But no matter how apt, his lengthy discourses completely destroy the narrative's scant flow. Ironic humor and occasional insights cannot support the weight of this odd fiction/exegesis hybrid.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-56897-002-1
Page Count: 229
Publisher: Northwestern Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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