More monumental high-concept from Goldsmith (Marrying Mom, 1996, etc.), this time in a wonderfully funny fable about a wife and mistress who reverse roles—and a husband who apparently can’t tell the difference. Sylvie Schiffer lives in happy domestic comfort with perfect husband Bob in a well-ordered colonial home in the plush Ohio suburb of Shaker Heights. There, Sylvie is surrounded by her perfect family (including her outspoken mother Mildred, who owns a ceramic store called Potz Bayou); she brews perfect cups of aromatic tea; she plays a perfect Steinway piano with an ebony lacquer finish; and in winter a fireplace fills her music room with the comforting scent of applewood. But not all is well in Sylvie’s middle-class paradise. She’s turning 40, her children are in college, and she wouldn’t mind some marital passion to take up residence in her empty nest. But Bob, whose greatest passion seems to be his BMW “Beautiful Baby,” hasn’t made love to her in months; instead, he’s found a delicious little number by the name of Marla (does Donald Trump live in vain?), who works as a reflexologist (with a little toe-sucking on the side) and who incidentally looks a lot like a younger version of Sylvie. When Sylvie discovers the resemblance, she hatches a plot to “switcheroo” with Marla’she’ll find out what it’s like to be loved by her husband again, and Marla can experience the joys of having a man of her very own and a kitchen with an island in the middle. In another of Goldsmith’s trademark transformations, Sylvie gets a face-life and tones up, while Marla eats banana-cream pies to fill out. It all culminates with a hilarious Thanksgiving when Marla, the non-wife, attempts to roast 28 frozen squabs. Contrived, yes, but hysterically funny—and after reflecting on the invisibility of women, the reader may find it no more contrived than, say, a Shakespearean comedy. (Film rights to New Line Cinema; $200,000 ad/promo; author tour; TV satellite tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-017568-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
The queen of Texas melodrama takes metaphor perhaps a step too far as she pits her heart-transplant-patient heroine against a serial killer obsessed with stopping her new heart. Having as a child survived Hodgkin's disease, her parents' double suicide, and life in a series of substandard foster homes, feisty redhead Cat Delaney is more than able to wisecrack her way through a heart transplant operation at the peak of her career. Famous as a star of the television soap opera Passages, Cat experiences both a literal and figurative change of heart after her surgery, abruptly opting to drop her acting career, move to San Antonio, and create a local news segment aimed at matching abandoned children with good adoptive homes. She breaks off an affair with Dr. Dean Spicer, her wealthy cardiologist, and falls madly in love with Alex Pierce (``His tongue was nimble, his appetite carnal''), a Houston cop turned mystery writer whose sudden appearance in her life may not be coincidental. When newspaper articles describing murders of other heart transplantees begin appearing in Cat's mailbox, she realizes she's being stalked by a lunatic obsessed with stilling the heart of a loved one who may or may not be her donor. As the anniversary of Cat's transplant nears, the threat of violence grows greater. But from which direction comes the danger?: From her hostile secretary, possibly related to a woman who was murdered on the day of her transplant? From the stepfather of one of Cat's orphan clients, whose greatest rival may have been Cat's donor? Or (horrors) from sexy Alex, whose past holds more secrets than she could ever guess? Highly schematic and hastily sketched, this nevertheless provides a satisfying dose of Brown's (Where There's Smoke, 1993, etc.) famously raunchy sex scenes (`` `I want to know I'm with a man. I want to be taken. I want—' `You want to be fucked.' ''), and a certain raw enthusiasm that will no doubt increase her legion of fans. (First printing of 300,000; Literary Guild main selection)
Pub Date: May 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-446-51656-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1994
It's all quite entertaining and memorable.
Here, Follett sets the thrillers aside for a long, steady story about building a cathedral in 12th-century England.
Bloodthirsty or adventure-crazed Follett readers will be frustrated, but anyone who has ever been moved by the splendors of a fine church will sink right into this highly detailed but fast-moving historical work—a novel about the people and skills needed to put up an eye-popping cathedral in the very unsettled days just before the ascension of Henry II. The cathedral is the brainchild of Philip, prior of the monastery at Kingsbridge, and Tom, an itinerant master mason. Philip, shrewd and ambitious but genuinely devout, sees it as a sign of divine agreement when his decrepit old cathedral burns on the night that Tom and his starving family show up seeking shelter. Actually, it's Tom's clever stepson Jack who has stepped in to carry out God's will by secretly torching the cathedral attic, but the effect is the same. Tom gets the commission to start the rebuilding—which is what he has wanted to do more than anything in his life. Meanwhile, however, the work is complicated greatly by local politics. There is a loathsome baron and his family who have usurped the local earldom and allied themselves with the powerful, cynical bishop—who is himself sinfully jealous of Philip's cathedral. There are the dispossessed heirs to earldom, a beautiful girl and her bellicose brother, both sworn to root out the usurpers. And there is the mysterious Ellen, Tom's second wife, who witnessed an ancient treachery that haunts the bishop, the priory, and the vile would-be earl. The great work is set back, and Tom is killed in a raid by the rivals. It falls to young Jack to finish the work. Thriller writing turns out to be pretty good training, since Follett's history moves like a fast freight train. Details are plenty, but they support rather than smother.
It's all quite entertaining and memorable.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 1989
ISBN: 0451225244
Page Count: 973
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1989
BOOK TO SCREEN
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