A big book about big earthquakes that ought to be scarier than it is, by the author of The Kindling Effect (1996). The New Madrid Seismic Zone isn’t something most people worry about when they worry about earthquakes. After all, it’s nowhere near the dreaded San Andreas Fault—or, for that matter, even in California. Deceptively quiet, it lurks instead in middle America, stretching for 140 miles over parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and other heartland states. But the fact is, three of the most potent eruptions on record in North America have taken place there. True, that was back in1811—12; not a great deal has happened to menace anyone since. And then, suddenly, the wait is over: a monster quake comes crashing through the Richter scale to flatten most of the Midwest. Bad as that is, the real concern is the next one, “the Big One,” expected to provoke “the gravest crisis the country has faced since the Civil War,” as an advisor informs President Nathan Ross. Even as it is, the cities are burning, and panicky citizens are looting, scavenging, and gunning one another down (ironically) in an all-out effort to survive. Then a corps of embattled seismologists, desperate to find a way of thwarting Mother Nature, arrives at an answer almost as horrific as the problem: a mini-nuclear explosion to serve as a deterrent. There’s disagreement, conflict—the righteous seismologists battle their selfish, career-driven peers, while the fate of the nation hangs in the balance. Meantime, despite riot, rampage, and havoc, hunky seismologist John Atkins still manages to connect with luscious seismologist Elizabeth Holleran, and the earth moves for all of the usual good, old reasons. Research receives the bulk of Hernon’s attention, while characterization gets but a lick and a promise. Which means the science convinces and the scientists don’t. Which means 8.4 rates a middling 4.8. (First printing of 75,000, $75,000 ad/promo, miniseries to NBC/Avent)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-14400-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1998
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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