Originally published in Brazil, where it won a prestigious literary prize in 1989, this quirky first novel relates the saga of a Lebanese immigrant family, a tale as mysterious as the jungle that surrounds their home in Manaus, capital of the Amazon province. Matriarch Emilie's death is the catalyst for a low-key outpouring of memory and confession by relatives and friends whose voices often seem interchangeable. The narrators include a young girl who was raised from infancy as one of the family; Emilie's favorite son, Uncle Hakim; Dorner, a German photographer; and Hindie, an old friend. Cumulatively, their stories suggest but never define the truth about Emilie and her turbulent kin. She was a woman ``who suffered the death of loved ones and the sorrows of the whole family, and still managed to make each night a festival of pleasure that infected all the rooms.'' A devout Christian, she ran away to a Beirut convent when her parents decided to emigrate to Manaus, but her beloved brother Emir threatened to shoot himself if she did not come with them. Although the family prospers in Brazil, Emir, weighed down by secret sorrows, soon commits suicide by jumping in a tributary of the Amazon. Shortly after his death, Emilie marries a devout Moslem merchant, also a Lebanese immigrant; they formed a couple, Uncle Hakim recalls, ``extravagant both in disagreement and love.'' Their only daughter has an illegitimate mute child who is killed in an accident, and two of their sons are uncouth, greedy louts who may be responsible for Emilie's murder. People mysteriously appear and disappear in a narrative that remains opaque to the end. Atmosphere and ambience are everything here, plot merely secondary to the lyrical evocation of a particular place, person, and period. An interesting debut.
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-689-12165-2
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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