A sentimental, heart-wrenching tale from novelist and story- writer Currey (The Wars of Heaven, 1990, Fatal Light, 1988, etc.) offers brief glimpses of a banjo player's path—though tragic—to fame and self-respect. A coal miner's son born poor but proud enough to take up the banjo to ease the worry of his widowed mother, Sapper Reeves is cut from the rough, durable broadcloth of American legend. At the opening of the novel, Reeves, in his 70s, takes a break from writing the songs for what will prove to be his capstone album and drives back to his hometown of Maxwell, West Virginia, reflecting on the origins of the Steel Creek Boys, a trio he formed in 1947 with his boyhood chum Estin Wyrell and the handsome, self-assured Leonard James. With Leonard on guitar and Wyrell on fiddle, the three left their jobs, wives, and infants to go in search of success, but found mostly misery, disappointment, and loneliness while performing at high-school socials and dingy roadhouses. The joys of playing country music are never enough to overcome the disappointments, as the trio are cheated by dishonest club owners, exploited by radio stations, and insulted by drunks. After a hostile audience beats them up and smashes their instruments, Reeves slips for several years into an alcoholic funk, losing the affections of his trusting wife, Riva, but not of his young son, Bob, who later joins the Marines, goes off to fight in Vietnam, and returns home physically and spiritually crippled. Reeves's early experience with failure helps him cope with his son's despair. Then an unexpected gift of a banjo from Wyrell, and Riva's cautious return, bring Reeves back to his music at a time when a younger generation is looking for heroes. More bitter than sweet, and frequently fogged by self-conscious Faulknerisms, but finally saved by a convincing depiction of the hard lives of its characters and the stubborn persistence of their modest hopes in the midst of loss.
Pub Date: May 27, 1997
ISBN: 0-395-52102-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
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
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
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