Flames of passion and rebellion confront the darkness of intolerance in Alabama, with many a macabre twist—in Childress's latest southern-fried coming-of-age tale (V for Victor, 1984; Tender, 1990, etc.). The quiet life is over for orphaned 12-year-old Peejoe Bullis and his brother Wiley, both living with their grandmother, when lovely Aunt Lucille stops to visit in 1965—on her way to Hollywood after ending an oppressive marriage by giving her spouse D-Con in his coffee. An hour later, she leaves six kids behind and drives off with hubbie's head in a sealed Tupperware bowl (after first taking him out to show everyone); shortly thereafter, Peejoe and Wiley are taken to nearby Industry to live with Lucille's brother- -Uncle Dove, an unassuming undertaker—at the moment when civil rights becomes a burning issue in the town. The point of contention is a new whites-only municipal pool, at which demonstrations are held after a black boy is killed during a scuffle with deputies. Peejoe's terrified face is photographed during a night ambush of demonstrators by rednecks, later appearing on the cover of Life; and when fair-minded Dove also sides with the victims, his family and business quickly fall apart. Meanwhile, Aunt Lucille finds instant fame herself, falling into a promising role in The Beverly Hillbillies—until the Tupperware secret spills out at a party and she's forced to hotfoot it from Hollywood. Arrested with the head in her hands, she returns to Alabama for trial and is convicted, but a lusty judge lets her go—just in time for Dove's funeral home to be burned and his black assistant lynched. Threading a thin line between bizarre comedy and ugly southern reality, this is a deftly balanced tale that unravels in the end- -when the fantastic and tragic elements clash in a finale both brutal and banal.
Pub Date: Aug. 11, 1993
ISBN: 0-399-13855-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1993
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
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
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