A libertine novel for the modern age.
In Reynard’s debut novel, a French businessman egotistically pursues wealth and sensual pleasures.
Michel Bodin, the spoiled only son of wealthy Parisian parents, grows up in the 1950s and ’60s with a “lust for experience,” which he continues to indulge throughout his life. As a young man, he expands the family decorating business, finding all sorts of scams and tax dodges to increase his riches, and marries Charlotte, who loves him deeply. They have three daughters and enjoy all that the high life has to offer—including its dangers, such as the frightening break-in to the couple’s home recounted in the book’s preface. The main character repeats “his often-aired simple view that there were only two kinds of people in the world, wolves or sheep, and that he was determined to be a wolf.” He justifies himself in many conversations by explaining that in France, the system is rigged in favor of entrenched interests, so selfishness is necessary. “Morality is an invention of those who don’t dare to get what they want,” he claims. Michel can treat his wife badly because, he says, women are “submissive once you have overcome their exterior defense.” As he reaches midlife, his obsessive quest for excitement may lead to his undoing. While the unbridled pursuit of sensuality by the rich and shameless might catch the interest of some, Reynard’s novel is too talky for long stretches (one character admits, “I must stop making speeches”). Little about Michel’s narcissism, sexism or moral turpitude encourages further reading. Tying his self-justifications to France’s politics, tax structure and cultural hypocrisies makes him no less loathsome.
A libertine novel for the modern age.Pub Date: June 24, 2013
ISBN: 978-1483650371
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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