by Mary Lide ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 1995
The author of The Homecoming (not reviewed) stirs up a tempest in a postWW I teapot in this pallid parlor romance. Wispy country lass Lily Polleven is devastated when she finds that her secret retreat—the humble Cornish seaside shack in which she was born illegitimately—has been invaded by a lame loner, war veteran Richard Chote. She warms to him a bit after he saves her and her beloved cousin's shell-shocked, half-wit betrothed from drowning in the storm-tossed waters of Polmena Cove. Lily joins Richard's fight to establish his ownership of the shack and its lands when she learns from her inexplicably angry, pompous brother, Michael, that their grandfather plans to sully the fair but rugged Cornish seashore with a tacky vacation development. Michael disdains his sister's rebellion because of his love for an older woman of means. Sophisticated Iris Duvane finds toying with Michael's affections good sport but views him as just a townie hayseed. Michael hopes to win her love, if he can just cover up his family's dark past and scandalous unions. To the family's embarrassment—and the hindrance of the resort plan—Richard Chote does own the land: Richard's grandfather, Lily's grandfather's cousin, gave the beach and the cliffs around it to Richard's grandmother as a present for bearing his bastard children. Not minding that they are (distant) cousins, Lily falls in love with Richard, while Michael becomes an arsonist who creates the formulaic crisis that leads to a happy ending. Scampering on the moors, ingenue in love with brooding stranger, cruel relatives, big fire—the elements of ersatz Victorian success are here, but the panache of the Brontâ sisters isn't.
Pub Date: Jan. 19, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-11877-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
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by Mary Lide
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by Mary Lide
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by Mary Lide
by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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SEEN & HEARD
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