An impressive debut that, though it drags a bit in the middle, establishes a constant and ingeniously engrossing sense of...
A teenage girl and her Iranian lover, 17 years her senior, embark on a disturbing journey into the American Midwest.
Working as a candy striper in The Dalles Community Hospital in Oregon, 15-year-old Erika Etulain meets Dr. Majij Aziz, a repressed, bullied man from Iran in his early 30s. Compared to the boys in her tiresome junior high school, his maturity enchants her. Rebelling against staunch English parents, Erika rushes into the Iranian doctor’s arms, embarking with him on a road trip to Kansas, entering into sigheh, a temporary Shia marriage, so Majij can have sex with her guiltlessly. The cracks in this taboo coupling are immediate. Majij’s hope to shape Erika into the perfect Muslim wife whom he could take back to Iran is dashed by her rebellious spirit and inquisitive nature, to which he often violently reacts. Waiting for them in Topeka is Majij’s brother Hakim, whose devout fundamentalism demands much of his weak-willed sibling and his new wife. Hutson’s debut will predictably draw comparisons to Lolita, but the novel demonstrates a subtlety of tone and a skillful understanding of interpersonal relationships more reminiscent of Jane Austen than Vladimir Nabokov. The disquieting nature of their coupling is never romanticized, lending the narrative a clever, subdued quality so that otherwise banal happenings—a fart by Majij, an immature, sniping teenage comment from Erika—disturb not only the characters but the reader as well. The drawback to this approach is that the novel’s most important moments and its settings feel overly restrained, even generalized, in their portrayals, blunting emotional or violent outbursts by the characters and ironically making the novel feel its most inert when on the road. Though set before the events of 9/11, and never once uttering the word “terrorism,” the book draws heavily on real-world happenings in 1989, from the influence of the ayatollah to the first World Trade Center bombings, fostering a timely paranoia that addresses, if only superficially, both Islamophobia and fundamentalist Muslims’ fear of Western influences.
An impressive debut that, though it drags a bit in the middle, establishes a constant and ingeniously engrossing sense of discomfort.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-615-80963-2
Page Count: 362
Publisher: Gilliss Books
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
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
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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