First mainstream outing—a family drama with a touch of the supernatural—from the leading fantasist (the Alvin Maker series) and sf writer (The Memory of Earth, p. 81). Devout Mormon Step Fletcher, designer of a successful computer game called Hacker Snack, moves with his family to Steuben, North Carolina, to take up a new job. To Step's dismay, he is urged to accept a contract signing away his rights; he also discovers that his sole function will be to write manuals. Step and his wife DeAnne, now seven months pregnant, are given a warm welcome by their church—but eldest son Stevie (8) experiences difficulties at school and becomes withdrawn. At church, DeAnne fends off the meddlesome, self-proclaimed visionary Sister LeSueur, while Step has problems with Lee, who thinks he's God and wants to baptize Stevie; Step also meets a whiz programmer who calls himself Saladin Gallowglass (despite his talents, Glass turns out to be a child molester); and through it all, the house the Fletchers rent is subject to periodic horrid invasions of insects. Frustrated and exasperated, Step quits his job, intending instead to upgrade Hacker Snack for a new PC range. Meanwhile, Steuben is haunted by the disappearance of a number of young boys; the police suspect a serial killer but have no clues. Then DeAnne gives birth to a boy, Zap (who suffers from cerebral palsy); more boys disappear from Steuben; and, frighteningly, their names coincide with those of Stevie's invisible playmates. Even more confusingly, the computer games that Stevie has become absorbed in seem to run without disks or software. Finally, at Christmas, the matters of Stevie, the lost boys, and the invasions of insects come together in a wrenching conclusion. Once again, Card writes superbly about children, and here he adds a persuasive and heartwarming picture of a loving couple working hard to solve their problems. Affecting, genuine, poignant, uplifting: a limpid, beautifully orchestrated new venture from an author already accomplished in other fields.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1992
ISBN: 0061091316
Page Count: 464
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1992
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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