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GETTING USED TO NOT BEING REMARKABLE

Name: GETTING USED TO NOT BEING REMARKABLE
Author: Michael Foley
ISBN: 0-85640-626-0

by Michael Foley ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 12, 1999

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A faintly melancholy portrait of the comedies inherent in middle age, by an Irish novelist (The Road to Notown, 1997) who makes optimum use of his Celtic wit. Like many an Irishman before him, Martin Ward went abroad to seek his fortune—in his case conceived of in literary rather than monetary terms. A scholar of French literature, he finds in the decadence of Baudelaire and Huysman, Villiers and Rimbaud an escape from the narrow-minded pettiness of Ulster (where he was born and raised) and the narrow-minded cosmopolitanism of London (where he teaches at a convent school for girls). An Irish Catholic who feels about as comfortable with the Roman Church as he does with the English Crown, Martin nevertheless decided that, since he already knew from his own experience how to deal with the clergy, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour would be a more comfortable berth than the tough secular school where he first taught when he came to London in the 1970s. His wife, Clare, is maternal without exactly qualifying as old-fashioned, and she begins to tire of her husband not long after the birth of their son, Paul. Flirtations among the faculty ensue, but Martin retreats deeper and deeper into French literature, leaving Clare a wide field to play on her own. She finds Nick, a young Englishman whose wild insouciance serves as a good antidote to Martin’s caution, and the affair doesn—t long remain secret. For Martin, this is all part of the London game, and he reflects with only a little regret upon how far he has come from Ulster. He is less secure in his feelings about the future, however, contemplating his vita nuova with some apprehension. Thoughtful and touching: Martin’s sense of humor and of the absurd keep him well clear of self-pity—although Foley’s narration stays rather dry and introverted.

Pub Date: April 12, 1999

ISBN: 0-85640-626-0

Page Count: 306

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).

Pub Date: July 1, 2002

ISBN: 0-345-45071-X

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002

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.