A horsy soaper.
First-timer Clayton takes a decorous stroll down memory lane.
Young widow Nelly Grace moves with her two sons to Maryland horse country, into an idyllic domain of old money and even older pretensions that the author sets forth, rather naively, as indisputable evidence of impeccable breeding. Here, we are informed, invitations are engraved, wives go by their husbands’ names, and ties are de rigueur at those antediluvian gatherings known as cocktail parties. Since times have changed, occasionally ties are not worn by the younger men (meaning under fifty) if the hostess specifies so on the engraved invitation. The hunt and its attendant festivities are all-important. The reader, whom one assumes has plunked down $25 that—oh, dear—he or she has actually earned, must perforce be allowed a peek into this hermetic world of rich people who “work their lips” before cracking a smile. And so we breathe the fragrance of saddle leather and upscale horse manure and open the barn door to myriad minor mysteries: Why did Nelly’s father, a famous photojournalist, tell her to burn some of his most moving images? Is that old snapshot tucked among them really Emma Crofton, redoubtable matriarch of the horses-and-hounds set, as a young woman? Is it possible that Emma and Daddy—no, of course not. Mother never mentioned it. Nor did Grandmother, during innumerable dinners featuring vegetables in cream sauce and cheese rolls and similar haute WASP cuisine. Perhaps Emma’s son, the dark and dashing Dac, knows more. He’s smitten with Nelly . . . but his Vietnam experiences still shadow his days. Should she believe the rumors of his involvement with Mai, a Vietnamese woman? Did Emma Crofton put a stop to that relationship decades ago, and will she stand in the way of Nelly’s happiness now? But the Big Question for Nelly, who has taken up photography once more, is more profound: Are all her images actually self-portraits, “trying to picture who I was, who I would become?”
A horsy soaper.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-31801-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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