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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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