First-novelist Keller, a Korean-American living in Hawaii, offers a shocking and unusual version of the mother-daughter relationship tale, in which a Korean woman whose experience as a ``comfort woman'' servicing Japanese troops during WW II profoundly distorts her own life and that of her Korean-American daughter. Poor, orphaned Kim Soon Hyo was only 12 when her oldest sister raised the money for her own dowry by selling Soon Hyo to the occupying Japanese. One of hundreds of girls kept like animals in stalls and forced to service long lines of soldiers, Soon Hyo was assigned the name Akiko—the name each girl inhabiting that stall had been given—then raped, beaten, humiliated, and adored on a daily basis, according to each soldier's whim. Profoundly traumatized, Soon Hyo struggled to survive by imagining herself emptied of her soul. As the war ends, Soon Hyo escapes to Pyongyang, where she marries an American missionary who knows her only by her hated Japanese name, returns with him to the US, and eventually gives birth to a daughter. When her husband dies, ``Akiko'' finds herself stranded in Hawaii with no money, a five- year-old child to care for, and a tenuous hold on her sanity. Rebeccah Bradley, Akiko's daughter, grows up in the shadow of her mother's periodic bouts of psychosis, periods that a number of locals view as true visitations from the spirit world and pay to witness, thus providing a modicum of financial support for the two females. Rebeccah, ignorant of her mother's traumatic childhood, struggles mightily to free herself from the terror and embarrassment of Akiko's fits, eccentricities, and neglect. It is only after Akiko's death, when Rebeccah herself is almost 30, that she learns the terrible secrets buried in her mother's past. Not at all a pretty story, but a memorable one, powerfully told. Keller brings her Korean characters to vivid, passionate life. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-87269-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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