Octogenarian Sage debuts with 14 wry and moving tales, all marked by their depth of perception into the workings of the human heart. This slim volume revels in the complexities of the simple life, parading forth an assortment of country rascals and city sophisticates encountering the challenges inherent in growing up and growing old. Two stories, equal in their eloquence and sassy spirit, fondly recall characters from the narrator's past: ``Sunday School on the Chicaqua'' remembers Bay, who moved from Mississippi to the Yankee North long ago, and is now impromptu chef of the Sunday Schoolthat is, the cottage where the local men gather to drink, tell tall tales, and play poker while their wives and children attend church. The story meanders effortlessly, winding in and out of wise old Bay's anecdotes on the river. ``Room 409'' portrays a couple of Depression-era college students living the high life in San Francisco off Hadley's family fortune. Hadley and Jackson meet on college steps where they form a fast and true friendship, which turns into romance once a week in room 409 of the swankiest hotel. Now in his 80s, Jackson recalls the bittersweet affair on notice of Hadley's death, realizing too late what he had thrown away. Meanwhile, ``Bib Overalls'' and ``Moe's 3 Birds'' tell sprightly tales of adolescent romanceMoe is ``ugly as mud and not too bright but she sure as hell knew what it was with boys and girls'' and was also the town's sharpshooter, producing inestimable pride in her 13-year-old beau. Other offerings present a darker panorama: a man tries to get through Czech customs with his wife's ashes; a mother who spies on her daughter's front-porch fumblings later confronts the boyfriend, offering her own brand of advice and comfort. Piercing observations paired with wonderfully comic phrasing: small gems from a master of the form.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-57003-064-2
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Univ. of South Carolina
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
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
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
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