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SHATTERING GLASS

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

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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MAGIC HOUR

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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