Jaffe's debut novel, about a divorced father and his young son, recalls the better domestic realism of the past two decades. But, as with the work of writers like Ann Beattie and Richard Ford, his quotidian drama and mundane observations seldom live up to his exacting style. Nothing in life has worked according to plan for Gordon Nash, who'd dreamt of becoming a high-powered, big-city litigator. When his twentysomething wife abandoned him and their boy, he instead opted for partnership in a small firm in tiny Tarent, Kansas, in the wholesome heartland of America. A single father, he hopes to avoid the mistakes made by his own late father, a hotheaded college basketball coach. Meanwhile, Gordon's widowed mother sends four- year-old Calvin all kinds of odd gifts, including a pickled Portuguese man-of-war, which he names ``Mom'' and carries around in a Mason jar. The confused little boy also steals urinal disks, and has to endure his father's occasional outbursts of cruelty. When the local high school asks Gordon to coach the basketball team, he decides to use the occasion as a way to bring himself and his son closer—the opposite of his experience with his volatile father. Feeling cheated by life, Gordon craves an unencumbered existence but mellows somewhat when he falls for Zoe Ward, a veterinary student who adores Calvin. Then Gordon's ex-wife suddenly appears, actually running off with Calvin until she realizes why she felt inadequate as a mother in the first place. For all its sensitive- guy posturing, the story builds to a well-deserved (in its opinion) slap across the face of Gordon's selfish ex. Jaffe's agonizing over the violent instincts of men will resonate with both genders, even if it amounts to such disposable insights as ``being a father is difficult.'' Too bad the novel suffers from the baby boomers' parental conceit that they've somehow reinvented parenthood. (First printing of 40,000; Book-of- the-Month Club/Quality Paperback Book Club featured alternate selection)
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-374-13466-9
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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