Much like Preston Sturges’s Hail the Conquering Hero for the new century.
Not to be confused with the current spy thriller by R. Joseph Garber (p. 647). This Whirlwind from Jaffe (Skateaway, 1999, etc.) really is about meteorology, not spies.
In North Carolina’s Bentleyville, Lucas Prouty, a meteorology freak since childhood, works for the local TV station as weatherman, or beachfront weather journalist. But at 35 and at his fourth small TV station, he feels he should be working for a major market, not making bad jokes on air about his fellow nerds. Poor Lucas’s recent marriage, marred by the stillbirth of the couple’s only child, dissolved after 17 months. His wife couldn’t stand his obsessive habits, among them working his way through a dinner plate by food groups. He’s now single—and irons his boxer shorts. Will Lucas ever make out with Kiki, the strip-club bartender with lemon-colored hair, now working for her MA in social studies at the University of North Carolina? Well, yes, but not until something supremely fantastic happens to him, and that’s Isabel, a Category 5 hurricane, one of the three strongest storms to hit the US in the past century. The station goes nationwide as Lucas films from the beach, roofs lifting off, his cameraman suddenly cut in two, the top half sailing skyward as the nation watches Lucas himself swallowed up by Isabel. Famous, he’s found by rescue workers nine days later, buried in a restaurant’s cellar. Lucas and Bentleyville become the center of a media maelstrom. Whenever he turns on the hospital television, there the media is, gathered out front. Then the boss of a network offers him a contract in New York. Marvin Kellogg has him on his late-night TV show. He and Kiki make out, almost. All of this happens with Lucas half-dazed, if not stupefied. There’s a movie deal afloat. Hey, what a whirlwind.
Much like Preston Sturges’s Hail the Conquering Hero for the new century.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2004
ISBN: 0-393-05961-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
