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ASHER

Name: ASHER
Author: Mark Fyfe
ISBN: 0-7145-3027-1

by Mark Fyfe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1997

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English adolescent anomie, told from a male perspective. First-time novelist Fyfe's terse style holds one's attention with the anger of his 17-year-old protagonist, the insidious schoolboy Asher, who leads us through a series of sadomasochistic adventures at home, on the street, and at school. ``Asher prayed. To himself. The prayer of hate,'' reads a typical passage describing Asher's megalomaniacal nihilism, reminiscent of some aspects of the movie Trainspotting. Yet the novel is constricted in impact and reach by the author's better understanding of the what of Asher's hatred than the why of it. While Fyfe seduces with the distinctiveness of his corrosive narrative voice, the fiction as a whole isn't probing enough to avoid a psychological shallowness that allows it to degenerate simply into an onslaught of tight- lipped, grim reports on the young man's ongoing rebellion, from his talent for cruel manipulation—often of the women whom he casually conquers—to his betrayal of a drug-dealer cum crony to the authorities, to his apparent collaborative role in his father's death from medical neglect. ``Life was disposable,'' Fyfe writes. ``He would win, whatever the cost.'' Despite all the dutifully contemporary references to drugs, dissipation, and family dysfunction, though, Asher comes across finally as just an old- fashioned misanthrope, con, and bully who may really want to be dominated and abused by somebody stronger than himself. Improbably, just such a person turns up in the form of an American college girl who gets the better of Asher in sex. Less a novel than an attempt at a mordant, brief glimpse into a sociopath: a debut, filled with indulgences and bravado, that makes an impression despite its weaknesses.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-7145-3027-1

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Marion Boyars

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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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

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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.