Summer camp should be full of good times that result in happy memories, but that’s not the case for 9-year-old Robert. The...
Debut novelist Sewell spins a tale of childhood sexual abuse and a quest for justice.
Summer camp should be full of good times that result in happy memories, but that’s not the case for 9-year-old Robert. The evil Mr. Diabolus, who also serves as the assistant principal at Robert’s school, punishes the boy over a trifling issue by first locking him in a closet, then whipping and raping him. Afterward, the boy, who was raised in a very strict Kentucky home, feels that he can’t tell anyone about the matter, although people around him sense that something is clearly wrong. Diabolus later attacks Robert again, this time at school, and when the boy’s anger boils over at home, he finally tells his parents about it. However, they don’t believe his story and severely punish him. The only joy he has in his life is a cute girl his own age named Ardee, but she soon moves away. Thoughts of her stay with Robert as the years go by, as do memories of his friend Willis, whom Diabolus also victimized. As an adult, Robert has taken up a habit of drinking to the point of passing out. Ardee reappears and proves to be a kind but no-nonsense savior. She leads him to a psychologist, Dr. Richie, who may help him cope with the abuse that threatens to haunt him for the rest of his life. Sewell paints a vivid, if frightening, picture of life in a conservative, religious Kentucky town. For example, the summers are depicted as so hot that the heat “barely abated below a thousand degrees, with humidity dense enough to write your name in the air.” As a child, Robert is truly trapped by the institutions of school, church, and home, and the author writes about this living nightmare in a quite graphic way. The scenes that demonstrate Robert’s compassion for Willis also stand out as being particularly heartfelt, as do the protagonist’s too-brief encounters with his psychologist. Sewell impresses with her unique narrative approach and dialogue, which breaks apart stereotypes about therapy. The novel’s latter half has Robert and Ardee plotting to bust the sexual predator, which is satisfying in a way, but the book might have benefited from spending more time on Robert’s healing process.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937273-18-7
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Martin Sisters Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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