by Nance Van Winckel ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1997
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
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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