A riveting character study that turns seemingly routine lives into something extraordinary.
In this debut novel, a small group of people in a New England cul-de-sac spend a bleak summer dabbling in deceit, aversion, and sordidness.
Dr. Carla Bishop, a new assistant professor of political science at Yale, moves to Staniford Drive in Dorset, Connecticut. She and her husband, Phil, a lawyer between jobs, are the only blacks in the community. Other cul-de-sac residents include Neil Testa, who has recently lost his father and is essentially a recluse, staying at home either drunk or stoned. Amanda Holbrooke is a homemaker living with her husband, Gavin, a security company owner, and their son, Kyle, who’ll start college in the fall. Seventeen-year-old Ethan Carlisle is infuriated by his new lacrosse position of team manager, which he assumes is due to his last-season flub that cost the team the state championship. Turmoil for everyone slowly creeps in. Phil’s inability to secure employment leads to apparent despondency; Amanda grows weary of Gavin’s incessant financial manipulation; and Ethan frequents Neil’s house to buy whatever booze or drugs the man has. While some community members’ fantasies may spark an extramarital affair, others’ resentments within their households carry over to their neighbors. All of this negativity is bound to explode into hostility—or something violent. Mancuso writes in a straightforward style that meticulously covers the individual narrative perspectives of Carla, Neil, Amanda, and Ethan. The novel offers a tense, anticipatory tale from the beginning, as the very first line specifies that one character is a mere month away from death. From there, the story deftly hints at the seediness bubbling beneath everyone’s lives. For example, Gavin controls Amanda with a biweekly allowance while Carla and Phil endure microaggressions at a neighborhood garden party. But Gavin’s domineering nature seems a precursor to physical abuse, and Amanda believes her husband is racist, even if not overtly. Despite readers’ knowing someone will die and watching certain players, like Neil, spiral downward, both the narrative and the characters are often unpredictable. All of these threads culminate in an uncompromising and unforgettable ending.
A riveting character study that turns seemingly routine lives into something extraordinary.Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949116-24-3
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Woodhall Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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