A family-tragedy tale that makes some familiar pleas for understanding before wheezing to the finish line.
One man’s near-fatal shooting unlocks his family’s secrets about faith, finances and sexuality.
Alumit’s second novel (Letters to Montgomery Clift, not reviewed) is inspired by the 1999 shootings at a Los Angeles Jewish school, during which a Filipino-American postal worker was killed. In this story’s version of events, mailman Jory Lalaban survives, and while confined to his hospital bed, he contemplates the life that was nearly cut short—a childhood in an orphanage where he was raised by Jesuits; his shotgun marriage to a wealthy girl, Belen; his love of transcendentalism and conversion to a moon-worshipping faith; and the death of his son Jun. Meanwhile, his immediate family has its own concerns. Belen, who works as a nurse, grows panicky about the ever-escalating hospital bill, and fears that Jory’s shooting is proof of her mother’s curse on her for becoming pregnant. Emerson, their eldest son, is a shy and neurotic gay man, and he anxiously strives to work up the nerve to speak publicly about his father while reaching out for the comfort of his estranged boyfriend, Michael, a flight attendant from Taiwan. In general, the focus here alternates from Jory to Belen to Emerson, a structure that lets the reader engage with each character’s idiosyncrasies; Belen, for instance, believes she has a direct line to the Virgin Mary, while Emerson is comforted by cell-phone calls from his deceased brother. But though Alumit is skilled when it comes to characterization—the tension between Emerson and Michael is nicely rendered—the novel is so stuffed with good intentions that it becomes tedious. Alumit makes an honorable plea for the reader to understand Filipino culture, Jory’s faith, Emerson’s homosexuality and the way a child’s death rends a family, but by the closing chapters, the narrative is firmly locked into tearjerker mode—its spiritual elements, initially intriguing, ultimately feel like bits of greeting-card sentimentality.
A family-tragedy tale that makes some familiar pleas for understanding before wheezing to the finish line.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-7867-1629-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2006
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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