THE PERSIA CAFÉ

Name: THE PERSIA CAFÉ
Author: Melany Neilson
ISBN: 0-312-26219-1

by Melany Neilson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2001

Neilson’s prose verges on the overripe rather too often, but evocative detail and a powerful sense of place more than...

bookshelf

A young black man disappears on a hot night in Mississippi, and all hell breaks loose.

Neilson’s first fiction, a rather conventional southern drama of wrongdoing and redemption, isn’t quite up to her Pulitzer-nominated memoir, Even Mississippi (not reviewed), but it’s a strong story nonetheless, vividly told. It’s 1962, and Fannie Leary, the cook at the Persia Café, sees Earnest March drive away, leaving his white girlfriend, Sheila, sobbing in the parking lot. Not much happens in the small town of Persia, so local gossips and bigots are delighted to have something to talk about. Earnest, for example, seems to have vanished—until the day Fannie catches a glimpse of his decomposing body in the river and notes the unmistakable bullet hole in his forehead. She goes to look for his grandmother, Tchula Gaze, who’s also stone cold dead, though apparently of natural causes. It’s possible that Tchula knew her grandson had been murdered but told no one: in the rural South of the ’60s, there’s one kind of law for white people and quite another for black. Fannie, who’s white, isn’t surprised that the town sheriff and his lackadaisical deputies can’t find Earnest’s body in the river or anywhere else when they organize a posse. But Fannie knows what she saw and knows she’s not crazy. Soon others are disappearing, including her alcoholic, troubled husband Will and his father Amos. The FBI gets involved, which triggers a terrifying midnight visit from the Ku Klux Klan. Fannie fears for her own life, but she perseveres, and the strange truth comes to light at last.

Neilson’s prose verges on the overripe rather too often, but evocative detail and a powerful sense of place more than compensate.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-312-26219-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

bookshelf

Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

bookshelf

Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.