A cast of thousands moves sluggishly through an interminable plot. The turgid prose doesn’t help.
Sprawling frontier saga of love, loss, and revenge spanning several decades: a first from Colorado lawyer Gilchrist.
Spirited 22-year-old Mary Bullitt of Louisville, Kentucky, has tried her parents’ patience long enough. Her oh-so-refined mother is determined to marry her off without further delay, even though the likeliest candidate, General Henry Atkinson, is 44. The General has distinguished himself in campaigns against the British and the Indians; perhaps he will also be able to tame Mary. She, a headstrong hoyden, thinks he’s too old but is nonetheless intrigued by his dramatic tales of life on the edge of civilization, “where the most reckless desires of men were manifest.” This turns out to be Missouri, for the most part. On her way to St. Louis, the new Mrs. Atkinson demonstrates her pluck by coping with coarse types of every description, including a passel of backwoods brats who just for fun slowly break the neck of a trussed goose. The General is often away, fighting complicated battles with one tribe or another, and Mary fears for her own life when his nemesis, Black Hawk, appears. The General is too soft where Indians are concerned, people whisper, and no one understands why. Mary is perplexed by her husband’s evident attachment to an Indian woman known as Bright Sun, whose connection to Black Hawk troubles her. The General, however, offers no explanation. Years pass, relatives come and go between Kentucky and Missouri, the Atkinsons’ two children die of cholera, and Mary’s youthful beauty and vigor fade away. Here and there, other points of view take over: we hear from Mary’s cousin, Lieutenant Philip Cooke; the General’s diary is quoted at length; and even Bright Sun gets to tell her side of the story. But all lives revolve around the compelling persona of the old man, whose one great sin will at last be revealed.
A cast of thousands moves sluggishly through an interminable plot. The turgid prose doesn’t help.Pub Date: July 3, 2001
ISBN: 0-684-87143-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy,...
Britisher Haddon debuts in the adult novel with the bittersweet tale of a 15-year-old autistic who’s also a math genius.
Christopher Boone has had some bad knocks: his mother has died (well, she went to the hospital and never came back), and soon after he found a neighbor’s dog on the front lawn, slain by a garden fork stuck through it. A teacher said that he should write something that he “would like to read himself”—and so he embarks on this book, a murder mystery that will reveal who killed Mrs. Shears’s dog. First off, though, is a night in jail for hitting the policeman who questions him about the dog (the cop made the mistake of grabbing the boy by the arm when he can’t stand to be touched—any more than he can stand the colors yellow or brown, or not knowing what’s going to happen next). Christopher’s father bails him out but forbids his doing any more “detecting” about the dog-murder. When Christopher disobeys (and writes about it in his book), a fight ensues and his father confiscates the book. In time, detective-Christopher finds it, along with certain other clues that reveal a very great deal indeed about his mother’s “death,” his father’s own part in it—and the murder of the dog. Calming himself by doing roots, cubes, prime numbers, and math problems in his head, Christopher runs away, braves a train-ride to London, and finds—his mother. How can this be? Read and see. Neither parent, if truth be told, is the least bit prepossessing or more than a cutout. Christopher, though, with pet rat Toby in his pocket and advanced “maths” in his head, is another matter indeed, and readers will cheer when, way precociously, he takes his A-level maths and does brilliantly.
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy, moving, and likely to be a smash.Pub Date: June 17, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50945-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
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
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