A well-crafted first novel strains to affect as it tells of three generations of Japanese-Americans whose lives have been distorted by family and history. Four narrators, Eric and his sister Mariko, grandmother Kaori and her son Jack, chronicle the story of the Okada clan from their arrival in California in the early 1900s. Events move from that point to the recent present and from California to Hawaii, where Mariko now tries to learn about something of the past from her mother Emi. Shortly before WWII, Emi left the family as a teenager, became pregnant with Eric, gave him up for adoption, and then, as the Okadas were about to be sent to an internment camp in Colorado, returned home pregnant again. Emi’s mother, Kaori, retrieved Eric from his adoptive parents, while her brother Will, brutally treated by his own father and later to die as a war hero, beat up Emi and accused her of being a whore. Meantime, her uncle Jack, his loyalties divided, stood by helplessly. Nothing especially good will happen to the Okadas, whose sorry plight never quite evokes sympathy, either because they overreact or, seemingly for plot purposes, remain bent on behaving stupidly. When Mariko, now in her 50s, learns that Eric is her brother, she better understands why she feels alienated from husband Roger; fearful of abandonment; and guilty about a secret abortion. Eric, reared by Kaori, became a convicted criminal in adolescence and has felt rejected ever since Emi chose Mariko over him when she finally married. Jack. Jack also fought in WWII, and, torn between his marriage and his family, chose the latter, while his mother Kaori regretted not keeping the promise she—d made to Emi to stay with her no matter what. Eventually, the two siblings are reunited, and Mariko confesses her past to Roger, but the mood is somber rather than celebratory. The story makes heroic efforts to come alive and engage but, despite the fine prose, just doesn—t.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-019370-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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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