Nineteen hundred and fourteen was a good year for Corey Lane and Jorge Martinez, the heroes of Zollinger's (Lautrec, 1990, etc.) novel, though neither knew it when Lane, the sheriff of Chupadera County, N.M., chased the fugitive Martinez into enlisting in Pancho Villa's Division Del Norte. By year's end, both would fall in love with Mexico, the Revolution, and beautiful Mexican women. The Mexican Revolution, with its convoluted politics and terrible brutalities, is the context of this novel. Young Jorge, an intelligent and sensitive Mexican-American, joins the Revolution because he believes in it and believes he is a fugitive. Both tough and literate, he is singled out for promotion, rising as the aide to a regimental commander. Corey, lawman, veteran of the Spanish- American War, and erstwhile historian, is tough and romantic. Recruited to spy for the US by a former comrade in arms, he moves through the Mexican Revolution with a diminutive Scotsman, an agent of the British Empire, witnessing bloody battles, fruitless negotiations, and barren embassy affairs. We see the struggle from within and without. Jorge's view is the soldier's: dusty, battle- weary, tense. Jorge, his idealism tempered but not crushed, becomes as much concerned with the politics of the division as with those of the Revolution. Corey's experiences, though adventurous and risky, are those of the outside observer. As much as he wants to influence policy and events, he is locked out. Both Corey and Jorge establish deep friendships with comrades and ardent affairs with women. Jorge's affair with Juanita Duran aids the narrative, while Corey's affair is an intrusion. Generally, Jorge is more interesting than Lane, but both are sympathetic and evolve in credible ways. Two small, interwoven stories within a large and colorful tapestry. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 10, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-85529-X
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1994
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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