Growing up gay in an Idaho farm town is the subject of this sensitive, sad debut, which shows promise in its clear and often mythical narrative but falters when dreaminess takes over. Beginning with a prologue explaining that the story is ``part truth and part myth and part history'' (what good novel isn't?), narrator/protagonist Clinton devotes eight overwrought pages to his devout Mormon parents—a handsome, persevering father who spent his life working the land of other men; and a beautiful mother who taught her son to love art, books, and music—before finally getting down to the main narrative. That focuses on Clinton's relationship with the school bully, Corey, a tough guy who flashes his penis during recess and pinches Clinton on the bus. When Corey reveals that his father physically and sexually abuses him, the boys become fast friends and Corey moves into Clinton's parents' barn. Idyllic scenes show them swimming in the river, working the fields side by side, sharing secrets, and eluding Corey's father. Eventually, the boys get to know an elusive character called the Vinegar Man, a wine maker and inhabitant of the local shantytown whose life story consumes a large portion of the novel. He gains the boys' respect with his stories about packing in supplies to hungry miners, falling in love with a saloon manager, losing his new wife and child in a freak accident, and becoming a medicine man among the Nez PercÇ Indians. With the Vinegar Man's guidance, Clinton and Corey embark on a Vision Quest to discover their identities and learn to follow the truth. But just when the boys finally realize how much they care for each other, Corey's father reappears, and the newly empowered Corey makes a decision that will carry him away from Clinton forever. Too much nostalgia and not enough substance.
Pub Date: Dec. 5, 1994
ISBN: 1-55713-130-9
Page Count: 226
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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