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CREEK WALK

Name: CREEK WALK
Author: Molly Giles
ISBN: 0-57601-023-6

AND OTHER STORIES

by Molly Giles ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1997

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A second collection from Giles (after Rough Translations, 1985) evokes the bitter quality of declining lives in terse—and ultimately depressing—tales. The suppressed resentment between former mates is a favorite underlying theme of this San Francisco writer's work, and her characters' sour, often self-righteous anger is evident right at the start. In ``War,'' a cynical ex-wife returning from a political meeting in Nicaragua notes the many ways her ex-husband has left his ugly mark on her house and daughter in her absence, and mocks the televised accounts of what's happening in Nicaragua with equivalent rage. In ``Leaving the Colonel,'' a housewife tells an imaginary TV interviewer exactly how she will abandon her neglectful husband. Leaving divorce behind, the tone turns weird in ``Talking to Strangers,'' in which the ghost of a murdered woman describes her ambush and dismemberment beside a hiking trail; a woman in ``The Writer's Model'' answers the tedious and puerile questions of a circle of nosy male authors, but gives up when a curious Martian shows up. In the intriguing tale ``Smoke and Mirrors,'' the heroine considers an affair with the brooding husband of a friend. The collection concludes with several complex, textured, moving explorations of grief and other sadnesses. ``Creek Walk'' describes a woman mourning her mother's death. In the angry ``Maximum Security,'' a divorced and financially strapped mom fails to get the promotion she needs. The best tale is, perhaps, the last. ``Untitled'' features a creative writing instructor bidding good-bye to her current group of students, knowing that her teaching contract has not been renewed. Here, at least, the heroine's bittersweet reflections exhibit some nuance. Often heavy-handed, but original as well: Giles's stories don't make a pretty picture, but often they do offer a convincing one.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-57601-023-6

Page Count: 144

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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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

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.