Raffish, neo-Expressionist novel in low-life slang, set in Manhattan but with a strong flow of London guttertalk, a pendant to Cohn's sweet-spirited survey of Broadway castoffs in the nonfiction Heart of the World (1992). Cohn charts the peculiar quests of a diverse group of misfits. Their deepest yearning seems to be for something to believe, a life raft to cling to. It's a pressing need, for most of these figures seem close to drowning—like waterlogged bodies rolling about in the surf. Ferdousine's Zoo, a pet shop, serves as a kind of halfway house for Cohn's four main characters. Ferdousine has hired Kate Root, an overweight ex-target in a knife-throwing act, to keep the shop going while he stays upstairs in bed. Kate has allowed Anna Crow, a belly dancer at Sheherazade's Middle Eastern cafe, to room there as well. Anna also makes money as a deliverer of Verse-O-Grams, a device that allows Cohn to quote much great poetry and leads to the novel's funniest scene—when she must deliver a Restoration poem (and a rope to hang himself with) to a man who calls himself ``Brinsley Sheridan.'' Also on hand is John Joe Maguire, an Irish wanderer far from home, a bumbler whose innocence (stamped by God in a black birthmark on his thigh) frees him from the overwhelming needs and obsessions that drive the others here. The fourth cast member, Willie D, is a dream-ridden pimp who hopes to open a topless carwash but is largely fixated on his collection of outlandish shoes, each pair of which Cohn lovingly describes. These folks drift and hang about the pages in a sea of heliotrope detail; meanwhile, Manhattan slouches toward millennial breakdown, and a group of zealots called the Black Swans gather in darkness five levels below the subway tunnels, awaiting Armageddon. A journey to the end of the CÇline/Beckett night, of most interest to the small but devoted Cohn cult.
Pub Date: Feb. 7, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-42707-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1996
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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