Bewilderingly brilliant, frequently frustrating, archly hip debut about a mystically inclined, talking, alto sax-playing bear and the cruel, loving, or merely befuddled Manhattanites who ultimately help him achieve jazz satori. Taking more from Kafka than Disney, Zabor, a jazz drummer and music journalist, introduces us to the unusually gifted Bear, who is suffering the existential angst that comes from dancing and passing the hat on Manhattan's mean streets. One night Bear dons a raincoat and a dark hat, packs up his alto, and sneaks into a jazz club, where he jams with Lester Bowie and Art Blythe, who, like most human inhabitants of the cool, cynical, pearls-before-swine jazz world that Zabor knows so well, are more impressed with Bear's extraordinary sax chops than the fact that he's a bear that talks. Even Ornette Coleman is impressed, launching into a priceless speculation about the virtues of ``quadrupedal tone'' versus ``two-footed music.'' A subsequent club date, destined to become Bear's first album, ends in a police raid—evidently, animal acts, no matter how nonexploitative, require permits. So the Bear sits in jail, pining for fresh salmon while debating philosophy with a prison psychiatrist. Then jazz-world denizens join forces to spring Bear from jail, spiriting him off to Woodstock, where he can work on his album, ponder the mystical (but not physical—the eventual sex scenes are wonderfully gentle) impossibility of his love for a beautiful woman and prepare for his first tour. There are too many elliptical, navel-gazing meditations on mysticism, love, the imperfections of art—and on why the music business is so sleazy- -but, thankfully, there are also moments of satiric genius in Zabor's passionate portrait of an artist as a cool dude with fur. Hip, flip, sexy, and worldy-wise, with walk-ons by Charlie Haden and other jazz celebrities: a first novel that has the makings of a cult smash. (First serial to Musician)
Pub Date: July 21, 1997
ISBN: 0-393-04037-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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