A romp which, too soon, slows to a crawl.
A frothy exposé of the perils of book packaging, seasoned with a soupçon of culinary courtship.
In French-German author Barreau’s American debut, lovers of Paris and voyeurs of the French publishing scene will find much to relish. However, aficionados of tightly plotted romantic comedies will find considerably less. After being unceremoniously dumped by Claude, her boyfriend of two years, Aurélie Bredin, chef/owner of a charming restaurant on the Rue Princesse, drifts into an Île Saint-Louis bookstore to elude a nice gendarme who thought she was about to leap into the Seine. She espies a novel entitled The Smiles of Women, in French translation, by an English author, Robert Miller. Amazingly enough, the novel portrays a beautiful woman resembling Aurélie, and much of the action unfolds at Le Temps des Cerises—her restaurant. Her new infatuation with Robert Miller supplants her despair over Claude, and she resolves to meet the author, which poses a problem for Miller’s editor, André Chabanais, of Éditions Opale. Urged by his boss to scout and commission an “Englishman in Paris” project, André finds it easier just to write the thing himself. Collaborating with a British literary agent, Adam Goldberg, André invents a stereotypical English writer, an ink-stained, country-dwelling recluse. Adam’s dentist brother, Sam, agrees to pose for Robert Miller’s book-jacket photo, but now Opale’s marketing department is clamoring for Miller, who’s selling books in France like Ladurée sells macaroons, to make a Paris appearance for press interviews and a book signing. Worse, when Aurélie comes to his office in pursuit of Miller, André is smitten. To prevent exposure of his hoax, André, while trying to woo Aurélie himself, must answer her fan letters to Miller. But, what will happen when Miller, as impersonated by Sam, finally comes to town? The enjoyment of the deception is somewhat mitigated by the many talky scenes that pad the plot. The English translation exacerbates the ennui with flabby phrasing.
A romp which, too soon, slows to a crawl.Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-250-00670-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
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
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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