The second in a projected trilogy (The Book of Saints, 1991) celebrating the Italian immigration experiencethis time in a story that seems to circle around, rather than pin down, its young protagonist, now living in Canada. Picking up where installment number one left off, Ricci describes how young Vittorio Innocente and his baby half-sister, Rita, grow up in an Italian farming community in Toronto. Their mother died giving birth to Rita on the voyage from Italy, and while Vittorio's father and the rest of the family, who've also immigrated, give the baby the most perfunctory care, Vittorio feels especially responsible for her. The product of an affair Vittorio's mother had with another man back home, she is a remarkably resilient child, even though neglected and cruelly punished by her stepfathera moody, inarticulate man whose good intentions are subverted by his fears and anxieties. Vittorio, soon changing his name to Victor, is less resilient, more sensitive to the tensions within the family and the plight of various members caught between the old and new ways. These conflicts (like an aunt's relationship with an eligible second-generation Italian falling apart when the family insists on imposing old world obligations on the suitor) parallel Victor's accelerating but always uneasy move into the new and non-Italian world. Nothing seismic happensRita is adopted by a local family whose daughter has befriended her; the farm begins to prosper despite a boiler fire; Victor loses his virginity in high school, goes to college in Toronto, then, still alienated, teaches in Nigeria until summoned home because his father has died. A last epiphany, equally low-key, on the road to Toronto and a new life offers Victor some hope of reconciliation between the strange and the familiar. Surprisingly unmoving, despite the vivid portrayal of immigrants adjusting, changing, but never quite abandoning their heritage.
Pub Date: Oct. 10, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13520-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
A super-exorcism that leaves the taste of somebody else's blood in your mouth and what a bad taste it is. King presents us with the riddle of a small Maine town that has been deserted overnight. Where did all the down-Easters go? Matter of fact, they're still there but they only get up at sundown. . . for a warm drink. . . .Ben Mears, a novelist, returns to Salem's Lot (pop. 1319), the hometown he hasn't seen since he was four years old, where he falls for a young painter who admires his books (what happens to her shouldn't happen to a Martian). Odd things are manifested. Someone rents the ghastly old Marsten mansion, closed since a horrible double murder-suicide in 1939; a dog is found impaled on a spiked fence; a healthy boy dies of anemia in one week and his brother vanishes. Ben displays tremendous calm considering that you're left to face a corpse that sits up after an autopsy and sinks its fangs into the coroner's neck. . . . Vampirism, necrophilia, et dreadful alia rather overplayed by the author of Carrie (1974).
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1975
ISBN: 0385007515
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1975
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends,...
Before sobriety, Catherine "Cat" Coombs had it all: fun friends, an exciting job, and a love affair with alcohol. Until she blacked out one more time and woke up in a stranger’s bed.
By that time, “having it all” had already devolved into hiding the extent of her drinking from everyone she cared about, including herself. Luckily for Cat, the stranger turned out to be Jason Halliwell, a rather delicious television director marking three years, eight months, and 69 days of sobriety. Inspired by Jason—or rather, inspired by the prospect of a romantic relationship with this handsome hunk—Cat joins him at AA meetings and embarks on her own journey toward clarity. But sobriety won’t work until Cat commits to it for herself. Their relationship is tumultuous, as Cat falls off the wagon time and again. Along the way, Cat discovers that the cold man she grew up endlessly failing to please was not her real father, and with his death, her mother’s secret escapes. So she heads for Nantucket, where she meets her drunken dad and two half sisters—one boisterously welcoming and the other sulkily suspicious—and where she commits an unforgivable blunder. Years later, despairing of her persistent relapses, Jason has left Cat, taking their daughter with him. Finally, painfully, Cat gets clean. Green (Saving Grace, 2014, etc.) handles grim issues with a sure hand, balancing light romance with tense family drama. She unflinchingly documents Cat’s humiliations under the influence and then traces her commitment to sobriety. Simultaneously masking the motivations of those surrounding our heroine, Green sets up a surprising karmic lesson.
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends, like addiction, may endanger her future.Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-04734-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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