SPORT

Name: SPORT
Author: Mick Cochrane
ISBN: 0-312-26994-3

by Mick Cochrane ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 2001

Appealing in its evocations of a Midwest from two or three decades ago, but at its foundation it remains more like a YA than...

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Cochrane’s second (after Flesh Wounds, 1997), a tale of growing up trash-poor in the Midwest, is often rich in detail, but in its psychology it remains content with too little.

Harlan Hawkins is a junior high school kid in West St. Paul, Minnesota, who loves baseball, roots for the Twins, collects baseball cards, knows everything there is to know about both the game and its many players—and even plays himself, under the guidance of his kind and orderly history teacher and coach, Mr. Walker. But there’s plenty on the downside of Harlan’s life. A few years back, his mother developed multiple sclerosis and is now, though keeping her spiky attitudes and temperament, becoming badly degenerated from it. And now, unforgivably, his hard-drinking, short-fused, and hyperviolent father (a lawyer) walks out on the family (Harlan’s brother, Gerard, is slightly older) and almost immediately stops sending support money to them. The situation is dire and gets only worse as genuine poverty closes its fingers around the necks of the family. Cochrane gets all these details absolutely right, but, at the same time, his people don’t go deep or ring new. Harlan’s father is so vile as to be almost a cardboard villain. His mother is feisty, cynical, and quick—the heart of the story, really—but other elements simply remain more standard. Will teenaged brother Gerard continue his downward path to dissolution (tobacco, petty theft, etc.) and ruin? Will Harlan, a bright student who’s been taken under the wing of kind, good, concerned Mr. Walker, really apply to the ritzy private academy Mr. Walker himself (not quite believably) graduated from? And if Harlan does apply, will he get in? And if he gets in, will he attend?

Appealing in its evocations of a Midwest from two or three decades ago, but at its foundation it remains more like a YA than anything else.

Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2001

ISBN: 0-312-26994-3

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
FITZ
by Mick Cochrane

- BOOK REVIEW
FLESH WOUNDS
by Mick Cochrane

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.