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
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
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