The English author of A Sensible Life (1990) and other witty, elegant novels continues her cheerful splaying out of human rottenness, eruptions of goodness, and general asininity—all with a faint brushing of enchantment. Here, in an ancient, lakeside, woodside estate (viewed in time slices from 1944 to 1990), a dear man of admirable affections has been cursed with a marital legacy from a deceased, high-minded father. To Cotteshaw, the country house of Henry Tilotson, come Barbara and Antonia, ``two determined little beauties'' who think Henry is rather ``dishy.'' The young things have just accepted the proposals of two rather stodgy young men, thereby escaping boring jobs and parents (``all the usual'' reasons). Meanwhile, in Midsummer Night's Dream fashion, the lovers quarrel, love, and stalk off by wood and water as preparation for an outdoor dinner party gets underway. Anticipation shimmers, but upstairs—where she stays all the time—is beautiful Margaret, the bad fairy—Henry's simply awful, horrid wife. Finally, the guests arrive: a sweet homosexual couple, a brace of bores, the lovers, an old flame of Henry's and her husband, and the servants—a faithful retainer and a mother and son rescued years ago, by Henry's father, from death in Spain. It's happy time by the dark woods—until it's ``ill met by moonlight'' when Margaret arrives to perform savage and terrible acts, scattering the feast and wits. Years later, Margaret will drown (a joyous event with mystery attached). Also as the years pass—alas—lovely girls grow old (but there are secrets), and Henry leaves, unlike his father's ``dubious legacy,'' something quite marvelous. As always, the dialogue snaps with vigor, and there are delightful signature touches (e.g., animals have a haunting presence—from Henry's Greek chorus of dogs to the antic cockatoo, Margaret's sacrificial victim). For Wesley fans: another bright and biting novel.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-670-84672-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
PERSPECTIVES
Steinbeck's peculiarly intense simplicity of technique is admirably displayed in this vignette — a simple, tragic tale of Mexican little people, a story retold by the pearl divers of a fishing hamlet until it has the quality of folk legend. A young couple content with the humble living allowed them by the syndicate which controls the sale of the mediocre pearls ordinarily found, find their happiness shattered when their baby boy is stung by a scorpion. They dare brave the terrors of a foreign doctor, only to be turned away when all they can offer in payment is spurned. Then comes the miracle. Kino find a great pearl. The future looks bright again. The baby is responding to the treatment his mother had given. But with the pearl, evil enters the hearts of men:- ambition beyond his station emboldens Kino to turn down the price offered by the dealers- he determines to go to the capital for a better market; the doctor, hearing of the pearl, plants the seed of doubt and superstition, endangering the child's life, so that he may get his rake-off; the neighbors and the strangers turn against Kino, burn his hut, ransack his premises, attack him in the dark — and when he kills, in defense, trail him to the mountain hiding place- and kill the child. Then- and then only- does he concede defeat. In sorrow and humility, he returns with his Juana to the ways of his people; the pearl is thrown into the sea.... A parable, this, with no attempt to add to its simple pattern.
Pub Date: Nov. 24, 1947
ISBN: 0140187383
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1947
Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.
A forsaken family bound by grief still struggles to pick up the pieces 12 years after their mother’s death.
When famous author Gil Coleman sees “his dead wife standing on the pavement below” from a bookshop window in a small town on the southern coast of England, he follows her, but to no avail, and takes a near-fatal fall off a walkway on the beach. As soon as they hear word of his accident, Gil’s grown daughters, Nan and Flora, drop everything and return to their seaside family home in Spanish Green. Though her father’s health is dire, Flora, Gil’s youngest, can’t help but be consumed by the thought that her mother, Ingrid—who went missing and presumably drowned (though the body was never found) off the coast more than a decade ago—could be alive, wandering the streets of their town. British author Fuller’s second novel (Our Endless Numbered Days, 2015) is nimbly told from two alternating perspectives: Flora’s, as she re-evaluates the loose ends of her mother’s ambiguous disappearance; and Ingrid’s, through a series of candid letters she writes, but never delivers, to Gil in the month leading up to the day she vanishes. The most compelling parts of this novel unfold in Ingrid’s letters, in which she chronicles the dissolution of her 16-year marriage to Gil, beginning when they first meet in 1976: Gil is her alluring professor, they engage in a furtive love affair, and fall into a hasty union precipitated by an unexpected pregnancy; Gil gains literary fame, and Ingrid is left to tackle motherhood alone (including two miscarriages); and it all bitterly culminates in the discovery of an irrevocable betrayal. Unbeknownst to Gil and his daughters, these letters remain hidden, neglected, in troves of books throughout the house, and the truth lies seductively within reach. Fuller’s tale is eloquent, harrowing, and raw, but it’s often muddled by tired, cloying dialogue. And whereas Ingrid shines as a protagonist at large, the supporting characters are lacking in depth.
Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-941040-51-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
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