Lawyer, poet, and first-novelist Rotstein puts plot on the back burner as the lives of three unrelated women—detailed in three separate sections—intersect in Itaro, Italy. When her husband screws her over in their divorce settlement, Judy Kruger decides to attend the law school whose acceptance she'd declined years before in order to be a wife and mother. Eventually, she becomes a high-powered attorney, but son Shane suffers under the neglect of both his absentee father and now career-driven mom; turning to petty crime, he's arrested for purse snatching and marijuana possession. Just after Shane's out of jail, Judy's sent to Italy ``on business.'' Meanwhile, Dede Ein, from a wealthy and prominent Toronto family, grapples with her weight and the burden of her famous name—burdens that seem to be alleviated when she meets George, whose political aspirations don't become a problem until sons Adam and Michael are born. Slowly, George emerges as a selfish, single-minded egomaniac who cares about nothing but his own success and his extramarital dalliances. And so Dede, in desperate need for time alone to sort things through, heads for Italy. Then there's Barbara Talbot, an aspiring writer who registers for a course at New York University while husband Paul agrees to take over some of the care of their daughter, Jenny. But when Paul starts beating Barbara, she's terrified for her own life, and for Jenny's. Paul, resentful of Barbara's success—her first novel has just been published to great acclaim—is trying to turn Jenny against her. Conflicted, Barbara flees for her first-ever solo vacation . . . to Italy. Shortly thereafter, the three women meet at the Itaro spa, disaster strikes one, and the other two are left to mourn their own, tragic situations. A strange, unsatisfying, inconclusive story that doesn't manage to rise beyond its apparent message that contemporary woman can't be happy.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-374-26223-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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