More successful as history than fiction, which should intrigue readers with an interest in Oregon’s past.
Inspired by real-life pioneers, Marlen’s (Inside the Hatboxes, 2008, etc.) historical novel offers an unflinching look at life on the Oregon frontier.
Disgraced alcoholic physician William Bailey arrives in Oregon Country in 1835 hoping that life on the wild edge of North America might tame his demons. He quickly builds a life for himself among the Native Americans and French fur trappers along the banks of the Willamette River. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Margaret Jewett Bailey struggles to reconcile her Methodist faith with her fiery passions. Her restlessness inspires her to “sacrifice every earthly object” and become a missionary. Against her family’s objections, she makes the arduous journey to Oregon. There, she falls in love with William, and these two troubled, difficult people struggle to make a life together in a harsh, unforgiving environment. Marlen’s story is inspired by historical events: William was an early political leader in Oregon; Margaret wrote a thinly veiled autobiography, the first novel published in the region. Research is extensive (photographs and copies of Margaret’s letters accompany the text), and Marlen carefully marries historical truths with the fictional embellishments. Yet attempts to accurately depict the past occasionally veer toward the didactic, as when, on their wedding day, Bailey pauses to define an unfamiliar local term for Margaret: “Do you know about [a capote]?...It’s a coat made from a wool blanket. All the French Canadian trappers use them; they’re usually made from a Hudson’s Bay Company point blankets.” Extensive back story in the first half causes the book to drag: Margaret and William don’t meet until the book’s midpoint, and their courtship is brief and hurried. Their married life gets more attention, and this is no sugarcoated view of frontier romance. William’s Jekyll-and-Hyde personality—kind and thoughtful when sober, cruel and violent when drunk—dooms the relationship. After years of abuse, Margaret files for divorce, a bold move that mirrors her earlier efforts to escape her controlling father. She may be headstrong and selfish, but her fiery independence serves her well in an environment where the old rules don’t survive.
More successful as history than fiction, which should intrigue readers with an interest in Oregon’s past.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0977975280
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Sunbird Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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