Passable tale of love and lies in a proper climate.
A complacent Englishwoman who has it all discovers a life of passion and subterfuge in middle age.
Apart from the inclusion of the British class system to add some extra weight, the story of Dilly, her husband Francis, and her lover Matthew is little different from the predictable pattern of late-life adultery. Dilly, an unwanted and unloved child of near-poverty (nits in her hair, no shoes for school) grows up to be a pretty, unambitious 19-year-old. She meets Francis Holmes in the art gallery where she works, and, as he’s buying a Hockney for his new office (he’s a lawyer), he asks Dilly out. Six months later she’s married, almost 30 years later she has two grown sons, grandchildren, a luxurious London house, and a husband who still adores her. What she doesn’t have is passion. Returning from the funeral of her best friend, Dilly meets Matthew, a bit younger, certainly scruffier, but seductive all the same. The two begin an affair, and then, dangerously, fall in love. Dilly lies to Francis, telling him she’s visiting her old aunt Eliza when instead she’s off with her lover. The lies compound, she arranges for Matthew to stay with her at her summer cottage, they hide behind bushes from prying eyes, and she promises that she’ll leave her husband. Much of the story is taken up with Dilly’s anguished guilt at being unfaithful to her loving and truly lovely husband and, in the face of Matthew’s passion, not caring. There are a few truly juicy subplots—Aunt Eliza’s memories of her marriage to a homosexual, and Dilly’s sister Virginia’s unbridled jealousy over her sister’s good fortune in life—though the main plot, the story of Dilly’s affair, too often drones on about undiscovered passion without offering much action to go with it.
Passable tale of love and lies in a proper climate.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-30782-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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