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ONCE I LIVED

The protagonist of this novel (winner of 1989 Brothers Grimm Prize in Germany) parallels so many aspects of the author's life that it's difficult to escape autobiographical references: The unnamed narrator was born in Russia and transported to Germany in the 1940s, whereas the German-born Wodin spent many years in Russia. The action begins in 1945, the year of Wodin's birth. The adolescent narrator is a prototypical outcast: A Russian, she is relocated to German slums; her mother committed suicide; she spent six years in a Catholic orphanage where her Russian Orthodox training set her apart. Finally, she tells us on page one, there is going to be someone fully her own, a loving and loved child. Then she comes to feel that this ``child of a man who twice raped me'' is merely a foreign body inside her. The premise of this novel is to tell the fetus about her life. A trite concept, but the story is strangely compelling for its first 100 pages. Readers find easy identification with the teenager's loneliness. While sorely lacking dialogue, there are brilliant passages depicting her mother's ``rehearsals'' for death or her father looking through her underwear as he sorts the wash. The aftermath of WW II provides a tumultuous setting that lends credence to the narrator's sometimes petty experience. Suddenly, mid-book, the timing becomes skewed and the adult narrator visits Russia, meeting unknown family members. Returning to Germany, we find she's 16 again, and has run away from home. Exit the intense conflict with her father. Ruminations on postwar Germany lose their concrete focus and give way to long paragraphs of philosophical gibberish. While these narrative detours artfully depict a journey into madness, there are too many rational passages for readers to journey with her. A lyrical, promising, but wholly unsatisfactory effort by a writer whose subsequent work bears watching.

Pub Date: June 1, 1994

ISBN: 1-85242-221-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Serpent’s Tail

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1994

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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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