An unemotional and rather contrived treatment of a potentially poignant subject.
A single woman struggles modishly with her decision to adopt a young child orphaned by AIDS.
Meg Krantz, a potter who creates goddess vases and pots to sell at craft shows, finds it ironic that women often buy them as fertility charms. Perhaps because of her difficult relationship with her own mom, Meg has scarcely given a thought to the idea of becoming a mother herself—until Barry Toffler, a client of the HIV/AIDS service agency where she volunteers, dies suddenly and leaves Meg his four-year-old daughter Kimble in a hastily scrawled will. Touched by the plight of a child whose mother also died of AIDS, Meg is reluctant to turn her over to the Child Welfare social workers, but knows that eventually she’ll have to. When Kimble’s unstable grandmother enters the picture, all must await a decision on the child’s custody from the various social service agencies involved. Meg takes the time to ruminate wryly on the ups and downs of the bohemian life she leads in an illegal loft in Lower Manhattan; runs into (and beds) her beautiful but shallow former lover Sarina; wrangles with her acerbic therapist, who hands out bluntly unconventional advice; and wonders whether she really has what it takes to be a mother after all. Unfortunately, the little girl at issue remains invisible for much of the story, as Grossman concentrates in minute detail on the lesbian heroine’s endless exploration of her past, her feelings, and her fears. The downtown, self-consciously hip setting is defined by its trendy decor and arty clothes, which the author points out all too carefully. Arch dialogue adds to the general air of unreality—and often incomprehensibility, as in the sage reflection “But no, the tyranny of children was their categorical thereness.”
An unemotional and rather contrived treatment of a potentially poignant subject.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-55583-544-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Alyson
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2000
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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