A well-paced, gritty, and illuminating look back with an intriguing cast of characters.
Sex, drugs, changing musical vibes, and a small carved ivory snakehead propel Greenhill’s novel about an eclectic collection of struggling musicians in California during the 1970s.
Guitarist Reed Rosen drives from Los Angeles to Arroyo, where he will meet up with his friend Beau Miller, a young songwriter and singer; they have a recording session scheduled at Sierra Sound Labs. But first, he must navigate through an anti-war/Black Panther protest and the resulting police action. When he stops at a traffic light, a young Black woman opens the door, gets in the car, and sticks what feels like a gun in his side. “Drive,” she tells him. After a few blocks, he looks down and sees that the ‘gun’ is in fact a granola bar. This is how Reed meets Angie Henderson, a music arranger who will become the most important woman in his life. She rides with him to Beau’s cottage in Arroyo, located on land owned by Beau’s record producer Sunshine (AKA Solomon “Sonny” Schine), who also happens to be a major dealer of premium marijuana. The next day, at the recording session, it is Angie who saves the day after 17 lackluster takes, exercising her arranger chops to coordinate the drums and back-up musicians with the “two-AND” beat she suggested the previous night, delivering what Sunshine hopes will be Beau’s breakthrough into the country music charts. Greenhill’s nostalgic visit to the mercurial 1970s music scene in California is replete with high- and low-cultural signifiers of the period, including the social upheavals of the anti-war, anti-racist, and feminist movements, the easy availability of pot and cocaine, and lots of sex in all varieties. (A subplot involving Angie is a take-off on the Patty Hearst/Symbionese Liberation Army saga, and the little ivory snake talisman that made its way from Japan to California in Sunshine’s pocket in the early 1960s presages the later arrival of Japanese corporate involvement in the American music industry.) Most compellingly, Greenhill brings readers into the recording studios, depicting with riveting specificity the miniscule musical adjustments that are involved in producing a final product.
A well-paced, gritty, and illuminating look back with an intriguing cast of characters.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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