A sometimes-maudlin but imaginative holiday story.
A young boy’s determination to give a bitter recluse a gift transforms Christmas for an Appalachian city in Schell’s (Jack and Jillian, 2017, etc.) novel.
Gabriel Taylor insists that he’s 6-and-a-half, not 6, and soon to be a man. In Cumberland, Maryland, he lives across the street from Sarabelle Lindsay, a retired nurse who has become angry at the world since the loss of her husband, Irwin. She’s especially irritated by her neighbors Galen and Mabel Duckworth, who garishly decorate their house for Christmas each year and annoy Sarabelle with their cheer. Meanwhile, Sarabelle’s indifference irks Gabriel’s mother, Janine. But Gabriel is preoccupied with why Santa brings only a small present for his best friend, Becky, who wears hand-me-downs and whose family only occasionally turns on their Christmas-tree lights. There’s general confusion at Sarabelle’s attitude in this close-knit community but also gossip, drama, and even scandal. When Gabriel overhears that his father, Ben, has been fired from his job, he becomes convinced that his parents must pay Santa to visit every year; it would also explain why Becky gets so little and Sarabelle gets nothing. Gabriel resolves to negotiate with Santa this year, and he decides that Becky will receive his teddy bear and Sarabelle his stuffed turtle. This sets off an unexpected chain of events that includes wrongful termination, fraud, vandalism, and even attempted suicide before the boy’s plan renews an entire town with faith and hope. Schell was born in the real-life Cumberland, and he extensively draws upon his knowledge of the area in this novel. His impressionistic descriptions of life in the town are moving and downright lovely. The story offers a character-driven plot that creatively pulls together the travails of various families toward a single, cataclysmic tragedy. However, his dialogue is pedantic and precious at times (“Mr. Benjamin Owen Taylor, we’ll march, our Pitney Pistols drawn, straight to the bottom line of this fraud”), and the Agatha Christie–like solution to Ben’s firing is predictable. Otherwise, however, this is a charming, humorous tale about the continued importance of Christmas.
A sometimes-maudlin but imaginative holiday story.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5396-7483-2
Page Count: 232
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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