Ghosts on the golf course! Phantom visitations on the ninth green! Platonism, the paranormal, and psychedelic whiskey at Scotland's most famed but fictional golf course! Yes, Murphy, golf's greatest mystic, humorist, and founder-director of the Esalen Institute, has at last spawned a sequel to his otherworldly Golf in the Kingdom, which has sold 750,000 copies since 1972. In volume one, Murphy went to the fictitious Burningbush course in Scotland's County Fife (``The Kingdom''), where he had a metaphysical encounter with Shivas Irons, a guru/pro of supernatural perfection whose line of mystical palaver would leave Madame Blavatsky drooling enviously. Since that encounter, many parts of which, Murphy explains, he could not put into volume one because they'd not fully matured and developed (such as Murphy's sighting of Irons's own guru, Seamus McDuff, three years after McDuff's death), Murphy and his buddies have been hyperaware of luminous bodies on the green—paranormals guiding balls through shots only a witch could make. He returns to Scotland once more to seek out Shivas Irons. There, he finds himself well-known, his book read to tatters by the locals, all of whom try to wheedle from him how much of his account is true. Meantime, Murphy falls in with Buck Hannigan, a James Joyce look-alike and theoretical physicist hooked on the paranormal, and together they visit the late Seamus's glowing house and his preposterously difficult seven-hole personal golf course, designed to help raise otherworldly spirits. A visit to Hannigan's mistress, a Russian mystic and channeler, shows the ties between angels and eros, while all comes to a head at the '93 National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach. Do they find Shivas? Well, spiritually. A big hit? Doubt it not. These are the occult dimensions of golf, straight from the Easter bunny. ($200,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 1997
ISBN: 0-7679-0018-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
A compelling exploration of self, family, love, and the power of new beginnings.
After a year in a coma, Annie Rush wakes up to a world without her husband, the TV she developed, and a wealth of memories that put her life into context, but as her body and mind heal, she puts her faith in second chances.
As a successful cooking-show producer who’s married to the gorgeous star, Annie knows she’s lucky, so she overlooks the occasional arguments and her husband’s penchant for eclipsing her. She’s especially excited the day she finds out she’s pregnant and, ignoring her typical steadfast schedule, rushes to the set to tell him. And discovers him making love to his onscreen assistant. Stunned, Annie leaves, trying to figure out her next move, and is struck on the head by falling on-set machinery. She wakes a year later in her Vermont hometown, as weak as a kitten and suffering from amnesia. As the days pass, however, she finds clues and markers regarding her life, and many of her memories begin to fill in. She remembers Fletcher, the first boy she loved, and how their timing was always off. She wanted to leave her family’s maple farm behind and explore the world—especially once her cooking-themed film school project was discovered and she was enfolded into the LA world of a successful food show. Fletcher intended to follow her, until life created big roadblocks for their relationship that they could never manage to overcome. Now, however, Annie’s husband has divorced her while Fletcher has settled in Switchback, and just as things look like they may finally click for Fletcher and Annie, her pre-accident life comes calling again. Wiggs (Starlight on Willow Lake, 2015, etc.) examines one woman’s journey into losing everything and then winning it all back through rediscovering her passions and being true to herself, tackling a complicated dual storyline with her typical blend of authenticity and sensitivity.
A compelling exploration of self, family, love, and the power of new beginnings.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-242543-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fat pancake of a novel, the author's second hardcover production tells the life story of one Ruby Blue—from an abused childhood and youth, to years as wife of a Marine, personal liberation, life in the world of industry, and her golden years in a rural retreat. Throughout the career of Ruby Blue, monster men abound. There's Papa George in their Pennsylvania home, a slasher, smacker, and wife beater, who requires that his daughters repay him, in bucks, for the cost of raising them. Then there's Ruby's husband, Andrew (met in those WW II glory days in D.C.), who is heavy on the verbal abuse and generally amoral. Ruby's lifelong friend Dixie is regularly slugged mercilessly by husband Hugo. Ruby's longtime true love, Calvin, is a gentle soul, but his wife, Eva, is as lethal as the men; fortunately for Calvin, she lacks the biceps. Ruby weathers life with Andrew at Marine bases and puts up with his callous treatment of their two children, but after Andrew admits to having gambled away their son's college money she finally decamps to New Jersey. Ruby soldiers on with Dixie, and their kitchen cookie business goes international in no time. As for the men, they'll get theirs: Papa George is Bobbittized with scalding grape jelly; the late Hugo's ashes get lost in traffic; and Ruby dumps Calvin. But Andrew sees the light. Glop. However, bear in mind the author's smashing success in paperback, including her Texas saga (5 million sold).
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-345-36774-X
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1994
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