A worthy, if challenging, entry into the genre of transgressional fiction.
Ten vicious stories about bombed-out marriages, dysfunctional families and the secret lives of men and women.
It takes a strong constitution to finish all of the stories in this disturbing, rebellious debut of familial moments by Artistically Declined Press co-publisher Bomer. They are certainly well-written and crisp, with desiccated prose that recalls writers like Amy Hempel and Mary Robinson. But she’s really not into happy endings. The opener, “The Mother of His Children,” exposes the damaged inner workings of a 35-going-on-50 middle manager whose sexual daydreams are spoiled by his graphic delivery-room memories of his son’s birth. “The Shitty Handshake” eavesdrops on the mindset of an alcoholic woman about to enter an affair. “I’m going to die not knowing what it means to be loved,” she says. “I’m going to die unhappy, afraid and alone. I’m going to die without having published a book.” A pair of interconnected stories, “If There Were Two Boats” and “The Second Son,” form weak bookends by examining an elderly woman’s inequitable relationships with her two sons. “A Galloping Infection” finds a husband pausing to reflect on his wife’s death and the new freedoms that come with it. Perhaps the most resonant, if no less off-putting, is the title story, which examines an Upper West Side WASP who gets everything that’s coming to her: a reluctant marriage proposal, stroller rides through Central Park and a baby who is the center of her life. At one point she imagines smashing his head against a brick wall. “The thought simultaneously energized and relaxed her. The imagining of it—she saw her face angry, imagined the swinging of her arms, imagined his little face wide with horror and his tiny, helpless head thwacking against the wall—THWACK!—and blood spraying out everywhere—the picturing of this, scene by scene, cleared her head.” Sleep tight.
A worthy, if challenging, entry into the genre of transgressional fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-9779343-7-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Word Riot Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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