A profound family melodrama that’s surprisingly upbeat, thanks to the always reliable maid.
In this second installment of a historical fiction trilogy, a couple’s divorce results in repercussions for all the members of the Mackey family in 1963 Virginia.
Twelve-year-old Sallee Mackey is coping well since her parents Joe and Ginny split up, in part because she’s fond of her dad’s new friend, Linda. But little sister Helen’s too nervous to even discuss their father’s place while at home with Ginny, and older brother Gordy has turned into a perpetually angry teen. Stuart, however, the oldest of the three girls, initially living with Joe, is ready to leave Charlottesville behind for a New York City college, particularly when she thinks Joe’s getting married—not to Linda, but to Rosemary. Ginny’s drinking, meanwhile, is getting out of hand, and she earns Sallee’s wrath after she insults Linda, prompting the girl to try some profanity (really just one word, but the worst one), courtesy of her older sister. When Sallee’s hospitalized with a serious illness, Ginny works at controlling her alcoholism, but problems for the Mackeys unfortunately continue. Gordy, not keen to the possibility of moving to another home, runs away, and Joe, in New York to check on Stuart’s academic probation, discovers something much worse going on with his daughter. Joe eventually realizes he’s still in love with Ginny, but she may not so willingly take him back. As in Morony’s (Apron Strings, 2014) previous novel, maid Ethel is the family’s glue. The kids sometimes seem more worried about hurting her than their mom, while endearing Ethel readily provides love and endless hugs. Even her husband, Early, contributes, making an attempt to set Gordy straight. Delving into Joe and Ginny’s troubled lives eases the story’s tension, especially because they’re largely at fault for the Mackeys’ turmoil. Joe’s father, for one, was a heroin addict, and Ginny learns an unsettling fact about her background that she may want to keep secret. Morony adeptly handles the various perspectives, making it difficult to specify a protagonist, and the title, though playful, can apply to more than one character. The author likewise teases events from her earlier tale without echoing said narrative, which will surely appeal both to series newbies and returnees.
A profound family melodrama that’s surprisingly upbeat, thanks to the always reliable maid.Pub Date: May 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9963289-0-6
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Westropp Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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