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TAPES OF THE RIVER DELTA

Name: TAPES OF THE RIVER DELTA
Author: Peter Cunningham
ISBN: 0-312-14051-7

by Peter Cunningham ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1996

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The knotted history of a modern Irish family is embedded in a quasi-political debut thriller, a combination providing less than stellar results. Sixtyish and desperate, Theo Shortcourse is hiding from the police in the river marshes near his childhood home, recording the brutal chronicle of his life on a tape recorder. Theo describes his rather idyllic childhood on the river with his best friend Pax and his nephew (though they're of the same age) Bain. Theo lives with his mother Sparrow in the grand house built by her father, Sammy Tea, while Bain lives with his drunken mother in a slum with Sparrow's long-estranged husband, Pa Shortcourse. Close as boys, the three choose very different paths in adulthood: Pax, the most moral of the three, joins the Guards while Theo, rejecting work in his father's sausage business, goes into a government post in Customs. Bain takes over Pa Shortcourses's butcher shop and begins grooming himself, with all the cunning wit of a street hustler, for a career in politics. Intermingled with Theo's narrative of these lives is the melodramatic history of his family, a record filled with incest, betrayal, and insanity. Pa Shortcourse, hailed as a hero in the Irish struggle for independence, is exposed as a liar and thief. Sammy Tea, Theo's grandfather, disappeared into a madhouse after impregnating his daughter—resulting in the birth of Sparrow. The three old friends eventually find themselves locked in a lethal conflict. Bain, now prime minister, blackmails Theo to help him pass missiles intended for the IRA through customs. Pax, determined to expose them, is hot on their trail. Though undeniable voyeuristic interest is created in the revelation of Shortcourse family secrets, the political aspect feels tacked on to support a narrative that tends toward the tedious and rambling.

Pub Date: March 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-312-14051-7

Page Count: 352

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

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.