Delbanco goes on writing his perhaps thanklessly individualistic books, which are not so much private as confined. He is a special taste who elicits very contradictory reactions. In Possession there is less of his "rich" or is it "precious" prose with only a few words like "parodic" or "ephemerid"; there's a homelier simplicity with occasional lines that lilt—"Still, paradise is warm. It is a stepped-up version of September." No one has ever questioned Delbanco's dedication to language or his concern with cankerous family relationships, most strongly evident in Fathering. Now a trio, a little reminiscent of Ethan Frome, are together/apart in the chill of lovelessness, possession, advanced age, and Vermont. The novel passes a day with the leonine Jonah who has spent his entire life in a "holding action" against the outside world, keeping his wife and sister victims of his "fighting riled" bullydom. His sister Harriet, now 81, has always been as shriveled as a lemon squeezed once too often. His second wife, Maggie, half his years when he married her at 48, became estranged after the crib death of one child and she left in order to free her other son Ian, her "final lover," as well as her vital self. Years later she returns for this day at Jonah's request, but during its course the whole past surfaces in uncomfortable takes, solidified by the accuracy of insight and detail with which the novel is caulked. These give the novel its strength and austerity even if it's as claustral as an hour spent in a root cellar.
Pub Date: Feb. 11, 1976
ISBN: 0688009808
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1976
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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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