A sweet charmer, and a promising debut.
A beguiling first novel wryly details the great divide between Brits and Americans—in everything from cussing to bathing—as a young American recalls her time as an au pair and the lessons she learned about life and love.
When she loses her job with a San Francisco ad agency and calls off her wedding to Ted, Melissa, feeling she’s so far failed at everything, decides to work in England, but the only work she can get is working as an au pair. She accepts a job with Mrs. Haig-Ereildoun, whose husband is an MP for a district in Scotland, and heads to London. The couple have three children—eleven-year-old Pru, nine-year-old Trevor, and three-year-old Claire, who is deaf (one of Melissa’s many jobs is to teach Claire to speak). Shortly after her arrival at the London house, a grim, shabby place, the family heads up to Troonafchan in Scotland, which is even more bleak and cold. Hot water is rationed—Melissa has to share bath water with the children—and the sun never seems to shine. On the way up to Scotland, the family drops in at Phillingsford, Mrs. Haig-Ereildoun’s family home, a place rich in history, comfort, and servants. There, Melissa meets Nanny, now retired, who soon befriends and counsels her. Back in London, Melissa, who loves food, gains weight, and is increasingly unsure she wants to marry Ted, especially after she’s met handsome scientist Simon. Though she loves the children, and admires Mr. Haig-Ereildoun, she is terrified of his wife, who makes her work long hours, and rants if she serves the children such American food as hamburgers or sandwiches, or uses American expressions. At the end six months, Melissa, a deliciously witty but fair observer, with prospects of a new job and love and tired of life downstairs, hands in her notice.
A sweet charmer, and a promising debut.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-26866-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
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