SUBMISSION

Name: SUBMISSION
Author: Marthe Blau
ISBN: 0-7432-7104-1

by Marthe Blau ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 9, 2005

Endlessly prying fingers aside, there’s less psychological penetration than in Pauline Réage, though the language is a good...

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A scorching, affectless tale of sexual servitude that shows how little has been added in the 50 years since Story of O.

Élodie is a successful Parisian lawyer who night after night leaves her husband and son waiting at home while she meets a stern, arousing but ultimately unfulfilling master who holds her in thrall for reasons she cannot understand. Her enslavement is a study in deferred gratification. In one of their earliest encounters, her nameless partner, a professional colleague, tells her: “You’ll want to scream, but you’ll be gagged. You’ll want to cry, but you’ll be blindfolded. You’ll want to run away, but you’ll be tied up.” Promises, promises: Except for the blindfold, this never happens. Nor does Élodie ever get Him to penetrate her, at least not in the way prescribed by the marriage manuals. Instead she’s condemned to an endless round of dressing in naughty lingerie, striking humiliating poses, making rendezvous and waiting in vain for him to join her, allowing her body to be violated by His probing and her compulsive dieting, accompanying Him to parties where He flirts with other women, seducing acquaintances for His pleasure and dreading the moment when He’ll give her to some male friend. Her foreboding is thickened by a psychic who warns her that she means nothing to the man who’ll destroy her happiness, an unsatisfied desire to feel Him inside her and a growing certainty that indeed He doesn’t care for her. Yet there’s no narrative impetus to Élodie’s degrading adventures and no real consequences, not even to the extent of fulfilling the psychic’s prediction that a woman will die. The result is a pillow book of tableaux that stages a dozen perverse scenes of sexual thralldom without consummation or release.

Endlessly prying fingers aside, there’s less psychological penetration than in Pauline Réage, though the language is a good deal more frank.

Pub Date: July 9, 2005

ISBN: 0-7432-7104-1

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

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.