Although Bausch (Rebel Powers, 1993, etc.) occasionally rests on his laurels here, this collection (some stories appeared previously in Harper's and other magazines) supports his reputation as a masterful short-fiction writer who fearlessly addresses love and its many permutations. One of Bausch's greatest talents is his ear for dialogue, and he has a way of replicating its rhythms while pointing up the ridiculousness of daily communication. ``Aren't You Happy For Me?'' consists mostly of a telephone call between a 23-year-old daughter and her father as she announces that she is getting married, that she is pregnant, and that her fiancÇ is 63. The discovery of a single ``High-Heeled Shoe'' in a field causes a man to contemplate the first and only affair during his 25-year marriage, and in speaking to his wife he is never quite sure whether he has revealed his secret. ``Tandolfo the Great'' is a part-time clown who drives to perform at a birthday party with a wedding cake in the back of his car, having intended to use it to propose marriage only to discover that the woman he secretly loves has reconciled with a former boyfriend. He takes out his sadness on the birthday boy and is tossed out of the party, almost losing his rabbit in the process. The title novella is a finely nuanced look at the aftermath of a suicide. A woman and her husband are forced to sell their farm, and before moving day she goes to a motel and swallows a bottle of pills without leaving a note. The narrative peels back layers and reveals shards of information about her and her family- -she had almost left her husband for another man 15 years earlier; her daughter Maizie has come tantalizingly close to an affair with a co-worker—and deals with the big question by letting it hang unanswered. Pauses and crossed signals that echo loudly.
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1994
ISBN: 0-395-64493-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1994
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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