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One for the Ark

Name: One for the Ark
Author: Mary Hutchings Reed
ISBN: 978-0-9962525-5-3

by Mary Hutchings Reed ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2016

A delightfully lighthearted tale that engages serious issues through farce.

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A novel about big ideas in a small town.

Thomas Donaldson became the mayor of Stirling, Wisconsin, in the hope of eventually running for the state senate. Reviving a small, failing town, he thinks, would count as evidence of qualification for grander office. However, he learns that George McBurney has posted a sign on his 600-acre farm announcing his plan to build a full-scale model of Noah’s Ark as an expression of his religious belief. Thomas tries to dissuade him, but George is fiercely committed to his “Big Idea” and prepared for a protracted political fight if anyone tries to stop him. Meanwhile, Martha Downing reports that she witnessed the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, often called “BVM” for short, emblazoned on a cement wall of an underpass. Lowell Waller visits what many immediately interpret to be a shrine and regains the power of speech that he lost following a stroke. Martha and some other like-minded enthusiasts waste no time in declaring Lowell’s boon a miracle. Thomas struggles to balance his own genuine religiosity with his desire to avoid public embarrassment. Meanwhile, he tries to delicately handle public opinion about the prospect of George’s ark, which he views as a ridiculous future eyesore. Thomas also learns that his daughter, once a star student at Yale University, is undergoing hormonal therapy to become a man. Author Reed’s (Saluting the Sun, 2015, etc.) novel is wildly implausible and flirts too conspicuously with attempts to make the plot serve a greater lesson. As is often the case with intentional farce, some of the characters are reductive caricatures—more like personified punch lines than fully fleshed-out people. However, the story is so inventive and genuinely funny that readers should be able to forgive its heavy-handedness. Reed dishes out ridiculousness without devolving into manic slapstick and courageously tackles controversial issues with a graceful touch. The author rightfully lets her characters speak for themselves as much as possible, with sharp-tongued dialogue that never seems overly contrived.

A delightfully lighthearted tale that engages serious issues through farce.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-9962525-5-3

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Ampersand Editions

Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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.