Despite the wooly New Age wrappings, a delightful portrait of an enchanted (and hilarious) land inhabited by a race of...
The secret lives of the elves and fairies who run the Emerald Isle, courtesy of Fitzpatrick (a.k.a. Nina Witozek, Polish-born, and the late Patrick Sheerhan).
Daimons aren’t really elves or fairies, to tell the truth, and they’re certainly not demons. They’re more on the order of guardian angels who observe and guide the actions of each and every godforsaken fool who ever walked the face of God’s green earth. Here, as before, Fitzpatrick ((The Loves of Faustina, 1995, etc.) takes us into the wilds of Ireland, where we follow the daimons of windswept Uggala Island as they go about their daily chores. Uggala is the sort of place you don’t return to without a good reason: Danny Ruane came back there after cracking up at Oxford, for example, and Ethna O’Keefe forsook sunny Florence and returned to her rainy family home only after her French boyfriend left her with child. Like many isolated places, Uggala has more than its share of oddballs. Apart from Danny (who now dedicates himself to seducing foreign tourists and writing a history of creation), there’s the local socialist Tom O’Reilly (improbably married to the most devout Catholic ashore), the aging hippie astrologer and singer Biafra O’Dee, and a new parish priest who has an uncomfortable knack for making women fall in love with him. The story is told by Ethna’s son Finn, who begins his narration in the womb (where he has a twin sister who refuses to be born) and seems to understand the world of the grownups better than they do. No surprise there, really, since Finn (like most humans under the age of six or so) is still conscious of his daimons and shares in their heightened perceptions of reality.
Despite the wooly New Age wrappings, a delightful portrait of an enchanted (and hilarious) land inhabited by a race of genial madmen—Ireland, in other words.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-932112-14-6
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Justin, Charles
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 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
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