because Duncker promises so much more.
From a promising British writer (Monsieur Shoushana’s Lemon Trees, 1998), a fictional interpretation of the life of Dr.
James Miranda Barry, a medical doctor—who was actually a woman’serving with the British Army in the early 1800s. Duncker has an eye for period detail, and memorably re-creates the settings of real-life James’s strange and lonely existence. Born in 1799, James was the only child of a beautiful Irish widow, Mary Ann Bulkeley, who often posed for her famous painter brother James Barry. She was also the mistress of Venezuelan General Francisco Miranda, living in exile in England. James, who from a young age was dressed by her mother in boy's clothes, was less certain of her paternity: Her father could have been her uncle, the general, or David Erskine, a noble lover of Mary Ann’s. Spending summers on Erskine's estates, James meets and falls forever in love with scullery maid Alice Jones, an ambitious young woman whom she taught to read. At ten, James’s three putative fathers, at her mother's request’she felt her daughter could have a fuller life as a man—tell James that she’ll study medicine but as a man. This she does. Later, she joins the British Army and serves in South Africa, the Mediterranean, where she faces a cholera epidemic, and Jamaica, where she witnesses a slave revolt. Though respected for her enlightened ideas and effective remedies, she is not, of course, what "he" appears to be—which leads to a young woman falling in love with James, as well as to a plethora of rumors about his gender. Retired, James lives with Alice Jones, now a famous actress, who tries to console her for her sense of never having had a real identity, by observing that we're all actors making up the lines and the plot as we go on. More an abstract exploration of gender and disguise than a perceptive take on a historical figure. Which is disappointing,
because Duncker promises so much more.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-019601-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
APPRECIATIONS
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