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MERIDIAN 144

Name: MERIDIAN 144
Author: Meg Files
ISBN: 0-939149-59-1

by Meg Files ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 3, 1991

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In the tradition of visionary, end-of-the-world novels, Files's debut rates low, as a woman survives a nuclear holocaust only to spend the rest of her time on earth contemplating her botched-up love life. The time is now, the place is a Pacific island something like Guam that's divided up arbitrarily among the natives, Japanese tourists, and the US military. Catherine Manning, a schoolteacher recently escaped from a joyless marriage and neurotic urban lifestyle on the US mainland, is scuba-diving off the coast with her current beau, an Air Force captain, when there's a sudden flash of light, an earthquake-like shudder, and an eruption of underwater debris. The captain is killed, and when a panicky Catherine, gulping mouthfuls of bottled oxygen, emerges from the watery depths, it is to find a world decimated by nuclear war. While repairing to the local dive shop to stockpile more bottles of uncontaminated air, releasing her dog from the island's quarantine pen (where it has miraculously survived), and scouring the island for packaged food, decent shelter and other survivors, Catherine begins to turn her thoughts inexplicably to the cindered remains of her own love life. Descriptions of her anxiety-ridden childhood, her unhappy marriage, and a series of sordid extramarital affairs are not only interspersed quite awkwardly with vivid evocations of a post-holocaust world and of violent confrontations with other survivors, but they're given equal weight—a decision that would be funny if it weren't so depressing. In the end, Catherine manages to join a group of ``good'' survivors to try to carry on the human race—though the reader, chilled to the bone by Catherine's phenomenal narcissism, may wonder why they bother. An oddity—cheerless and somber, with all the trappings and none of the import of literary profundity.*justify no*

Pub Date: Oct. 3, 1991

ISBN: 0-939149-59-1

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Soho

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1991

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.