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DREAMS OF THE CENTAUR

Name: DREAMS OF THE CENTAUR
Author: Montserrat Fontes
ISBN: 0-393-03847-5

by Montserrat Fontes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 1996

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Fontes returns to the Durcal family, introduced in her 1990 debut, First Confession. This prequel to the earlier work, which was set in the 1940s, takes place in the northern Mexico state of Sonora from the mid-1880s to the turn of the century, tracing the story of the founder of the family line, JosÇ Durcal—called El Centauro for his strength of character and body—and his equally determined wife, Felipa. Felipa gives him three sons, the oldest of whom, Alejo, will go on to enjoy a special bond with his mother. When JosÇ is killed by a jealous, politically connected friend, Alejo avenges his father's death with disastrous results, including a stretch in the subhuman conditions of a provincial prison, an equally punishing but brief stay in the army, and an involvement in unmasking the vicious trade in slaves by plantation owners in the Yucat†n. For background—and, often, foreground—Fontes uses the corrupt and racist regime of Porfirio D°az, which labored mightily to exterminate the Yaqui tribe. Alejo finds himself and his half brother enmeshed in an unsuccessful attempt to avert a huge massacre, an event that Fontes retells with breathtaking pace. Interwoven is the story of Alejo's love for his father's horse, Moro, a horse that almost no one else can ride. But in the novel's center is the relationship between Felipa and Alejo, and Fontes excels in exploring the complex emotional ties between these two. Alejo's travails in the army and after his desertion, told in the first person, drag a bit, Felipa's presence being sorely missed; but the final movement, reuniting son and mother under the most harrowing of circumstances, is satisfying entirely. Despite some longueurs, then: an effective, often exciting piece of storytelling with a powerful central female character.

Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1996

ISBN: 0-393-03847-5

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah

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by Kristin Hannah

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THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.