BUTTON MAN

Name: BUTTON MAN
Author: Paul Lyons
ISBN: 1-59228-409-4

by Paul Lyons ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2004

A nice portrait of life on the make, with a genuine, gritty feel and some memorable characters, but Lyons (Going for Broke,...

bookshelf

Sprawling account of a small-time gambler who hustles his way through the long, hot summer of 1988.

Like all gamblers, Hawk thinks he can beat the odds and refuses to learn when experience teaches otherwise. Now more than ten grand in debt to loan shark Armand, Hawk still thinks he can clear the books when his number comes in. He’s had big ambitions ever since he met Sammy, an old-school New York hustler who showed him one election year how he could make more money hawking campaign buttons in a day that he made as a pizza boy in a whole week. That was during the Nixon administration, and now Hawk is heading down to Atlanta for the convention that’s going to nominate Michael Dukakis. He’s under the gun, all right: Armand’s goon, Mr. Skinhead, has already cut off one of Hawk’s toes, with a promise of more to come if he misses his next payment. But there’s positive encouragement too, in the form of his new girlfriend Carla, a nubile neon-sign artist with a quick wit and a little girl from her old marriage. Hawk is still deep in the red after Atlanta, so he looks to the Republican convention in New Orleans to make up the difference. Meanwhile, Carla’s sleazy ex-husband Nelson has found out about her affair with Hawk and has begun stalking her. And Hawk’s old mentor Sammy is in the hospital for heart surgery. So Hawk has plenty of worries beside his own. After the convention, all the loose ends of Hawk’s life come back together in New York, where a gangland battle in one stroke solves most of his problems—but not all.

A nice portrait of life on the make, with a genuine, gritty feel and some memorable characters, but Lyons (Going for Broke, 1991, etc.) tries to put in a bit too much 1980s history, and the story rambles more than it needs to.

Pub Date: July 1, 2004

ISBN: 1-59228-409-4

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Lyons Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

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...

bookshelf

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

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

bookshelf

Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.