``The dawning'' connotes the brief freedom from foreign domination of a Serbo-Croatian village in this absorbing family saga, its Yugoslavian author's only novel. Baji-Poderegin (190471) worked from 1963 until her death on this first volume of a planned trilogy that was to have fictionalized her country's political and social history from the mid19th century through the end of WW II. It begins dramatically, with the arranged marriage of 15-year-old Savka to her highborn husband, whose later alleged murder by bandits leaves her to raise their daughters alone and schools her in the unpredictability and violence that characterize life in their village (Plevlje). The bulk of the novel, which expertly interweaves the mechanics and dynamics of marriage and family life with the broader issues of accommodation and resistance to both Austro-Hungarian and Turkish occupation, focuses on Savka's eldest daughter, Jelka. Marrying the man she loves in defiance of local custom, Jelka survives the multiple burdens of family conflict, childbearing well on into middle age, the loss of her children and of her husband Janko's devotion, a diphtheria epidemic, and the assassination in Sarajevo that precipitates WW I and once again threatens the villagers' culture with annihilation. The story ends with its focus now trained on Jelka's tenderhearted youngest girl, Milena, who would surely have become the unwritten subsequent novel's central character. This is a fascinating fictional glimpse into an almost forgotten time and place, bearing obvious and powerful relevance to its region's troubled more recent history. The evidence of this wonderfully rich work suggests that Baji-Poderegin, had she lived, might well have rivaled the preeminence of Serbia's Nobel Prizewinning Ivo Andri, the great novelist who undoubtedly influenced her, and whose colorful works her own moving novel essentially resembles.
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1995
ISBN: 1-56656-198-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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
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