From the justly touted author of Vanished (a 1988 NBA nominee) and A Dangerous Woman (1991) comes this panoramic view of small- town lifea novel infused with empathy for the flawed and failed who live there. Set in the summer of 1960, the story details how the Fermoyle family and their neighbors are nearly destroyed by a dangerous con man, Omar Duvall. When 12-year-old Benjy Fermoyle witnesses a murder in the woods above his Vermont hometown, then sees the murderer, Omar, appear later that evening with flowers for his mother, Marie, he is not surprised, and tells no one: Benjy has known forever that Omar's coming was ``as inevitable as the summer's fiery sun, and as unstoppable.'' Posing as a peddlar, Omar soon insinuates himself into the family by shrewdly flattering them. Lonely Marie, who gets no help from alcoholic ex-husband Sam in raising Alice, Norm, and young Benjy, is especially vulnerable to his attentions. She not only provides Omar with food and shelter but forges signatures so she can get a loan to invest in the get- rich soap-selling scheme he's touting. As the summer progresses, subplots unfold that parallel and often connect with the Fermoyles' fate: The local police chief has an affair while his wife lies dying; a young priest falls in love with Alice; an insurance salesman, besotted with his wife (a former showgirl), takes to crime; and Sam tries to dry out and get his family back. Meanwhile, the novel gains its thriller-like tension from the children's complex relationship with Omar, a man who makes their mother happy but is increasingly revealed to be both bad and dangerous. By summer's end, ``the malevolence in the air'' has finally dissipated, and the Fermoyles are on surer ground. A grand sweep of a novel: Morris, like a contemporary Dickens, creates a world teeming with incident and characters often foolish, even nasty, but always alive and in your face. (First printing of 75,000; $75,000 ad/promo)
Pub Date: Aug. 24, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-86014-X
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1995
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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