A Baton Rouge matron flees to Jersey City to start life anew, only to find herself in a no-man's-land of rent strikes, hired thugs, and life-threatening potholes—in this earthy comedy by Sharp (The Imposter, 1991; The Woman Who Was Not All There, 1988). Like most southern women, Ida Terhune was taught to assume she would always be cared for by a man. When her husband and father passed away on the same day, leaving Ida with one child and another on the way, she naturally married the first suitor who presented himself, the gentlemanly Harlan Terhune. As it turned out, Harlan had little interest in Ida and even less in her children, so after years of emotional neglect, stiff-necked, polyester-pant-suited Ida decides she has no choice but to pack the kids into her Chrysler and flee to the Jersey City apartment of her best friend, Betty Trombley. There, Ida is disturbed to find that action-addicted Betty has joined her fellow slum tenants in an all-out war against their landlord, who's allowed a lake of sewer water to rise to shin level on the basement floor. As Ida's children nimbly accustom themselves to hanging out with the homeless, wandering the broken, abandoned sidewalks of Jersey City, and shoplifting in their spare time, Ida struggles genteelly to leave the apartment, find a job, and arrange for a decent education for her kids. The theft of her car sends this stalwart lady reeling so off-center that she ends up accidentally killing the landlord's thuggish son—but just as she faces a life sentence in prison, another male savior appears, this time in the form of her eccentric Brazilian-American defense attorney, who'll win Ida's heart as he rescues her from doom. Sharp painstakingly sets up a number of comic situations that fizzle out disappointingly in the end—but this antic novel charms nevertheless with its frantic humor and roguish cast.
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-016564-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
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.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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