An interesting, if uneven, look at feminism and race relations on the American frontier.
Fast-paced historical fiction about the battles that built the West.
Set in the latter half of the 1800s, Sheeran’s debut centers on the rich but tormented life of the endearing, and occasionally exasperating, heroine, Elizabeth Barclay (aka Timpanagos, “the sleeping power that awakens”). Elizabeth is a talented pianist and composer whose birth to a powerful Washo Indian mother and upper-class white Nevadan father places her squarely on a cultural divide that, at the time, frequently threatened to erupt into violence. Through the lens of Elizabeth’s mixed heritage, Sheeran offers a thorough and thoughtful exploration of the two main stakeholders in the emerging West: the tribes who wish to preserve their land and self-sufficiency, and the white settlers intent on harvesting the region’s gold, silver and timber to feed a burgeoning western economy. But the heart of the story is Elizabeth’s identity struggle. While her white friends and relatives view her as being “ ‘possessed of a genius, born by some torturous fate to a native woman, then well educated in the east,’ ” the Washo tribe claims her as both prophet and savior, as the seventh in an ancient line of powerful healers, “ ‘the person who would cause the earth to turn.’ ” Elizabeth can only effect this prophesied societal healing if she abandons her place in white society and marries “the blessed one,” the formidable warrior Masete, whom she finds irresistible. Sheeran’s histrionic portrayal of their star-crossed love borders on maudlin, and a didactic subplot–set in the present and involving a group of women experiencing bizarre visions of Elizabeth in her day–undercuts the engaging tale of personal growth and cultural conflict.
An interesting, if uneven, look at feminism and race relations on the American frontier.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2006
ISBN: 1-59594-039-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
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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