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SWEETHEART

Can life still be fun, even spontaneous, despite HIV and safe sex? Yes, indeed, according to Zero, whose adventures, sexual and political, now continue (after Boys Like Us). Zero, like most of his friends in this comic, gabby chronicle of these plague years, is HIV-positive. But he doesn't let a little detail like that slow him down. As the story begins, Zero, an American in Canada, is mourning his lover Randy, who got AIDS in book one. Zero and his fellow AIDS Action-Now activists have helped open a clinic that will administer pentamidine, which battles AIDS-related pneumonia. At the opening celebration, Zero is picked up by Jeff, which leads quickly to a graphic sex scene. As this relationship deepens into domesticity, a cutesy wrench is thrown into the works by the arrival of teenager Mary Bull—a would-be actress who was fathered by Zero's cousin and first lover, Trebeh, in a lesbian friend via turkey baster. But Mary Bull, like much else in this loosely linked string of episodes, many of them having to do with show biz, disappears and reappears without becoming fully engaged—or engaging. There is a visit home to the zany clan in Little Rock (repeat characters include gay Uncle Markus), where Zero's mom tells him she just wants him to get well. Back in Canada, when conflict arises over Randy's choice of an epitaph, which his parents call ``filth,'' Zero sums up, in a sense, the novel's raison d'àtre: ``He wanted something humorous and sexual to counter the usual impression people have of this disease. It's political, in a way.'' The challenge that McGehee poses, and admirably tries to meet, is how to treat the AIDS crisis with humor without registering as superficial and glib. At times, the flightiness of these blithe spirits seems forced—even grimly determined. But at least they're not wallowing in self-pity. And, finally, their courage, and commitment, impresses and moves.

Pub Date: June 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-312-07863-3

Page Count: 208

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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