A misstep in Cullin’s unpredictable, adventurous and, alas, frustratingly uneven oeuvre.
Yet another change of pace for the versatile Texas-born author, now living in Japan.
Cullin’s fiction has ranged widely, and results have been mixed, but he seemed to have found his footing in A Slight Trick of the Mind (2005), a dazzling fictional portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in old age. Here, Cullin examines a long, happy marriage imperiled by illness and by the resurgent shadows of suppressed memories. When Korean War veteran Hollis Adams learns that his wife Debra has ovarian cancer, he initially hesitates to fulfill her request that he confirm their closeness by writing his life story. It’s partly because the Arizona retiree is troubled by dreams filled with visions of wounded, wasted creatures and blighted landscapes, harsh reminders of his distinctly unheroic combat experiences almost half a century ago. The emerging memories cluster around the brash, macho figure of Bill McCreedy, the Randall P. McMurphy figure of the battalion in which he and Hollis served, and a then-unsuspected link to Hollis’s future. The author works hard to juxtapose Hollis’s reluctant memories of an “intensely surreal two weeks at war,” which ended when he was wounded but later led to his stateside visit to abrasive, valiant McCreedy’s hometown and then a chance meeting that shaped the years that followed. This surprisingly tepid novel has two partly redeeming elements: several affecting scenes in which Hollis and Debra labor to believe that they really do deserve to live happily, despite the mocking presence of survivor’s guilt; and Cullin’s subtle examination of the complex emotional condition identified by his fine title, which refers to both Hollis’s literally troubled sleep and to returning servicemen’s hopeful visions of lasting security and prosperity. Yet the story never really moves beyond its beginnings, prompting a suspicion that the author couldn’t decide what to make of its narrative and thematic possibilities.
A misstep in Cullin’s unpredictable, adventurous and, alas, frustratingly uneven oeuvre.Pub Date: March 18, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-385-51329-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
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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