An engrossing tale that—even if it does seem to capture the entire Irish-American experience from the family nun a bit too...
In a nice change of pace for whodunit writer Raleigh (The Riverview Murders, 1997, etc.), here’s a warm and wise view of Irish Chicago—as seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old orphan being raised by his boisterous, hard-drinking kin.
In 1954, Danny Dorsey had a nightmare from which he never really woke up when his parents are killed in a head-on car crash. The blur of days and mourning that follow are bad for him, but there’s never a doubt in anyone’s mind that he’ll be taken care of. And once he moves into his maternal grandparents’ house, where two of his uncles and an aunt still live, he finds that his occasions of private grieving are offset by new adventures. Since his grandmother and the others have jobs, when not in school he’s left largely in the care of his grandfather, a pensioned streetcar supervisor, whose routines favor riding all over Chicago for free and frequent tavern visits. Danny has time to roam too, first with his troubled cousin Matt and later with his fearless friend Rusty. But it’s his connection with his youngest uncle, Tom, that keeps him centered amid the conflicts and chaos of an Irish-American boyhood. Tom has dreams and desires that he shares with his nephew, among them the wish that he’d played pro baseball instead of working in a dairy. Tom has an eye for the ladies as well, but one in particular has the rest of the family shaking their heads—with good reason, as Danny discovers on his outings with the two of them. But Tom’s troubles, as well as Danny’s, are only part of the much larger tapestry of family life, in which laughter has as much a place as worry and sadness.
An engrossing tale that—even if it does seem to capture the entire Irish-American experience from the family nun a bit too neatly—is filled with fine writing and compassion.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-57071-797-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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