A moving account of love and mourning.
A couple, devastated by the sudden loss of their young daughter, search for a reprieve from their grief.
Joy Rosenberg has an enviable if ordinary life—she has a devoted and successful husband, a fulfilling career as a designer, and two beautiful children. Her storybook world shatters, though, when her 10-year-old daughter, Jenny, suddenly dies in a freak accident. Friends and family close ranks to provide support, but their compassion can be suffocating. In one scene beautifully drawn by debut author Gunther, a neighbor barges into the house insisting she cook the Rosenbergs an elaborate meal and takes umbrage when told her unannounced visit is an intrusion. Guilt overwhelms Joy—Jenny died alone in her car while her mother quickly ran to an ATM. And even years afterward, she struggles with a return to the quotidian—her husband, Danny, immerses himself so fully in his work his “grief was becoming indiscernible.” Meanwhile, she still makes daily “pilgrimages” to Jenny’s now unoccupied room, a torturous rite of anguish. She turns to the distractions of yoga and work, accompanies Danny to a support group meeting, and solicits guidance and consolation from Judaism, all to no avail. Eventually, her marriage falters under the weight of their loss, and she’s tormented by the impact the tragedy will have on her son, Jake, who was 6 when Jenny died. Gunther powerfully depicts Joy’s despair and her inconsolability despite outpourings of love and support. The story is achingly sad, but the author manages to interject wry humor into its darkness: “I feel like the eternal battle between good and evil is going on inside me, like I can change the future of the universe. And I have to do the laundry?” Here and there, editorial markings remain within the manuscript, which can obscure the text and lead to confusion. Nonetheless, this is an unflinching exploration of heartache in its most extreme expression.
A moving account of love and mourning.Pub Date: April 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63393-546-4
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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