A curious and unaccountably redundant seventh novel from the English-French author of, most recently, the prize-winning Daughters of the House (1993). In a smooth style that expertly details several distinct historical settings, Roberts tells two juxtaposed stories: the life of St. Josephine, as recalled by her formerly wayward niece Isabel, and capsule “lives” of 11 other women elevated (in some cases, virtually air-lifted) to sainthood. Both narratives are framed by chapters set in “The Golden House,” a reliquary where the bones of the devout dead are displayed and worshiped. It’s the final resting place, in a sense, of the restless Josephine, a bookish girl and precocious writer who, after an uncharacteristic act of teenage rebelliousness, is sent to a convent where “she struggled for years to get the hang of how she was supposed to be holy.— Roberts depicts Josephine as a truculent intellectual unsettled by manifestations of the divine (Christ visits her in bed at night); a passionate gardener, autodidact (for whom learning leads to humility), and socialist organizer who eventually founds her own convent. It’s hard to gauge Roberts’s aims in this narrative, which can be read as an ironical study of the psychological dimensions of religious devotion. Things are clearer in the 11 interpolated “lives,” whose subjects include St. Petronilla, the daughter of St. Peter, who’s mortified by the drunken post-crucifixion carousing of the apostles; St. Thais, who seduces her father and dies in the well to which she is thereafter confined; and St. Marin, a girl disguised as a boy who is falsely punished for “fathering” her father’s illegitimate child—and achieves martyrdom. These are broad, often startlingly sexually explicit caricatures of emotionally driven females (many of whom have a thing for, or are had by, their fathers) whose intensity alone, it seems, sanctifies them. Insouciant and entertaining, even when one doesn’t know quite what to make of it. The Vatican will not be amused.
Pub Date: May 21, 1998
ISBN: 0-88001-597-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998
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
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
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