A melancholy yet redeeming story of life and love, loss and redemption.
In his latest novel, Gethers (Norton, the Loveable Cat that Travelled the World, 2011, etc.) spins a modern tale of betrayal and reconciliation, failure, forgiveness and family.
Dr. Bob Heller has done well for himself, especially considering he’s from a family suffering from "repressed neuroses, disappointment and...unfilled expectations." His grandfather was a prosperous manufacturer. His father rebelled, studied acting, found work in a soap opera but turned complacent. His older brother, Ted, much admired as Bob grew up, has somehow evolved into a narcissistic sociopath. College student Bob met beautiful and generous Anna while vacationing in Europe. They married. Shortly after graduating veterinary school, Bob was offered a job in Greenwich Village, with a free upstairs apartment, by a worthy mentor, Dr. Marjorie Paws. Dr. Bob even became a television personality and a newspaper columnist. Life is perfect, until Anna dies of stomach cancer. Phil, Bob’s lifelong friend, believes someday we’ll learn "life, at its core, was one grand, miserable, painful, ecstatic joke." Now Bob thinks that may be true. Gethers sketches perfectly the character and motivations of Bob’s father and the evolution of Bob’s brother from hero to hustler. However, Bob’s mother remains unformed, at least until the narrative's latter portion, where her character blossoms to reflect Bob’s deepening maturity. As he approaches 40, widowed Bob meets Camilla, an English-born physician serving with Doctors without Borders. The romance that ensues is passionate and volatile, with Camilla, full of anger and emotionally isolated, becoming one of the novel’s strongest figures. Another is Hilts, Bob’s nephew, crippled by Ted’s manipulations and left "too disconnected and too self-protective and too...sad." Dr. Bob is likable enough as a protagonist, but his actions at a critical point in the story seem counterintuitive. The novel is rendered from Bob’s point of view, with extracts from his "Ask Dr. Bob" column; his remarks there about animal behavior are intended to mirror elements of the narrative.
A melancholy yet redeeming story of life and love, loss and redemption.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9331-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
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
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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