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QUAKE

Name: QUAKE
Author: Nance Van Winckel
ISBN: 0-8262-1091-0

STORIES

by Nance Van Winckel ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1997

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The five inventive tales in this unusual collection speak to each other across time and space, but it takes a while for the reader to realize the subtle connections here. The very point of Van Winckel's second volume of stories (Limited Lifetime Warranty, 1994) is that there's no obvious prime mover to events—even if everything that happens is a consequence of a single moment. Everything begins, sort of, with ``Hearsay,'' in which a traveling ventriloquist recalls a brief affair with a native gypsy girl in Idaho whose one-night with the Ganje (non- gypsy) has tragic results for her and the brother who avenges her honor. In ``Ever After,'' a divorcÇe struck by lightning loses her hands, and is shrewdly counseled about her future by two old gypsy women in her convalescent home—they happen to be aunts of the girl from ``Hearsay.'' Meanwhile, in ``Whatever Shines,'' the sister-in- law of the tragic gypsy from ``Hearsay'' turns up in Milwaukee, where she runs away from an arranged marriage, goes to school, and lives with a group of girls who harbor draft-dodgers on their way to Canada. The gypsy boy who avenged his sister escapes to Mexico (in ``Cine HorriblÇ''), where he makes his living showing movies throughout the countryside until one of them, Dracula, is very poorly received by the horrified locals. He also suffers from visions of his wronged sister, who dies while giving birth the son of the ventriloquist. The longest and wildest story, ``Taking Leave,'' includes the voice of that very child years later, now grown and living in Milwaukee, who has no knowledge of his real parents. He eventually finds his calling in scavenging, using the materials he discovers to create art. The marime (the defiled) who people these intriguing stories share voices and visions; however confusing it at first seems, there's great pleasure in discovering the connections here. Van Winckel demands and deserves a careful reading.

Pub Date: April 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-8262-1091-0

Page Count: 168

Publisher: Univ. of Missouri

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
CURTAIN CREEK FARM
by Nance Van Winckel

- BOOK REVIEW
LIMITED LIFETIME WARRANTY
by Nance Van Winckel

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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

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
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.