Out of La Crosse, Wisconsin (home of Nicholas Ray), comes a quirky black comedy paying considerable homage to film noir: a solid debut about a hired psychokiller who steps off a bus into a city aware of (and dreading) his arrival, sending ripples of fear and desperation through the demimonde. Before killer Richie Buck brought matters to a head by decapitating a live pigeon with his teeth, the denizens of La Crosse lived their squalid lives with no interest in betterment. Protagonist Spleen sponged off his twin brother, living the low life to the fullest, until he met The Sneering Brunette in a pawn shop just as its owner was detailing his son's failed suicide leap into the river. Spleen and the Brunette exchange a few words and then cut to the chase, climbing into bed and into each other's tawdry lives. A chance hotdog on a cold night brings them to misery, however, when they interrupt a stakeout of the bus station as the hit man arrives; the Brunette's ex, the man who hired Buck, sees the couple and decides that letting them live would be a liability. A pair of rogue undercover cops enter the mix through the stakeout, along with a pigeon fancier who, after Buck swallows his pet's head, warns Spleen of what to expect. Taking action for the first time in his life, Spleen goes on the offensive, buying a pistol and setting a trap for Buck, after first setting up both the cops and Buck's employer. But his inability to commit totally to the Brunette sends her out the door, and his well-laid plan for the showdown is obscured by, believe it or not, an especially heavy hatch of mayflies. Melodramatic and tough-guy-terse to excess, in true noir tradition, with a fringe of grim humor: a first novel that's too heavy on the hardboil at times, but appealing in its idiosyncracies all the same—and an almost sure harbinger of better things to come.
Pub Date: June 23, 1997
ISBN: 1-883642-32-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Steerforth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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