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THE BAKER

Name: THE BAKER
Author: Paul Hond
ISBN: 0-679-45673-2

by Paul Hond ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1998

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A debut novel that transforms the terror of working-class, inner-city race relations into an upbeat examination of love, loss, and father-son bonding. Set in Baltimore, Hond’s appraisal of the cultural and economic barriers that isolate blacks and Jews recalls the bitter urban tragedies of Dreiser and Malamud. Mickey Lerner, a robust, sixtysomething Jewish bakery store owner, is alienated from his wife, Emi, a French-born concert violinist who no longer sees in him the integrity that once attracted her. Meanwhile, their 18-year-old underachieving son, Ben, spends most of his time smoking dope with Nelson Childs, the bakery’s delivery boy, who just bought his first illegal handgun from a street-corner junkie. After a hundred pages of meandering flashbacks, often ending in alleys as dark as the decaying neighborhoods that Hond clearly loves, we learn that Mickey, at Ben’s age, coulda-been-a-contenda as a boxer, but gave it up to run the store after his baker father died of a heart attack; that Mickey’s last bout was against Nelson’s father, who eventually abandoned his family; and that Mickey has harbored an earthy but unconsummated sexual attraction for Donna, Nelson’s mother, ever since. The story takes off when Mickey and Emi are robbed on the street by a pair of masked black youths, one of whom panics and kills Emi. At first, the tragedy makes everything worse: Grief-stricken Mickey takes off for Paris in search of secrets in his wife’s past, leaving Ben in charge of the bakery. And as a boss, Ben can’t cope with Nelson, who buckles under the humiliating treatment he gets from bigoted customers and falls in with his criminal buddies. Fortunately, though, Hond wisely doesn’t let his tale lurch to a violent climax but, instead, lets his characters find each other again as they uncover their hidden strengths. A bright Beaujolais of a book: fresh, optimistic, and sophisticated enough to satisfy on many levels.

Pub Date: April 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-679-45673-2

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.