Unsettling, sometimes annoying—but, still, hard to put down.
In her eighth half-successful outing, Huston (The Mark of the Angel, 1999, etc.) depicts a woman torn between the pulls of domestic love and professional passion.
Dancer/choreographer Lin and her husband Derek, a philosophy professor, live an idyllic existence with their two young daughters in a small New England town. Although happily married and almost obsessively in love with her children, Lin begins to recognize darker feelings, particularly toward her second, more difficult daughter. These doubts about her abilities as a mother aren’t illogical, given the models Lin is surrounded by. Her own mother died young, her best friend Rachel was abandoned by her mother, a would-be lover was emotionally smothered by his mother, and Derek’s is crassly commonplace—to Lin, the worst offense of all. In her mind (and maybe in the author’s as well), the artist is a superior being to whom ordinariness is the enemy. In brief and sometimes elliptical scenes, Huston traces Lin’s evolution into a woman who chooses to abandon her family in order to pursue her career, showing little desire, once she’s gone, even to visit her kids with any regularity. In chronicling this decline—or ascent—Huston writes with precision, though her use of dreams and snatches of fairy tale steps over the line into the precious, while Lin’s pursuit of dance is romanticized and just too perfect. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from showing Lin’s children as battered survivors, obviously scarred by growing up without their mother, while, on the other hand, Derek’s remarriage is portrayed almost as a character flaw—as if Lin’s rejection of him puts her on the moral high ground because she never loved anyone else. Whether sacrifice of family is required by Lin’s art or merely by her selfishness remains the unanswered question.
Unsettling, sometimes annoying—but, still, hard to put down.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2001
ISBN: 1-883642-63-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Steerforth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
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