The coming-of-age of an 18-year-old in the 1950's South—in an occasionally funny debut novel that's especially good on adolescent repartee but tends in the late going to idealize its hero and turn the plot into a wish-fulfillment fantasy. The author follows Benny Blake for seven months as he tries first to bed a woman and then to figure out the adult world. Augusta, Georgia, is divided between those who live on the Hill, with ``space, lots of space, between the houses,'' and the smaller abodes of millworkers. Benny, a millworker's son, is envious of those who are better off, especially since he wants to go to college but can't afford it. While the story follows a predictable pattern—Benny gets involved with Hill girl Cherry; her parents catch them in the act and banish Benny, only to have Benny make his move on Cherry at the airport just before her father ships her off safely to Europe—it's fresh in its textures: dates, double-dates, near-dates, male bonding, backseat strategies, and the agonies of lust-ridden adolescents deciding how far they can go. The usual conflicts between blue-collar boys and the Hill Catholics flesh out the plot: early on, for example, Benny is ``above life's petty concerns'' with Dianne Damico in his arms, but Tommy Haynes beats him up for being with her. The sex is sweaty and graphic, though Benny soon enough grows beyond scoring, first by releasing Cherry at the airport, admitting that he doesn't love her, and then by becoming a protector of women—until an older girl tends to his wounds and explains the facts of life to him: ``A girl wants you to see her for a whole person, to like her for who she is, not what she is.'' A sweet-natured foray, heavily tinged with nostalgia, into an age when growing up was mostly good fun—no drugs, no racial problems, only a little conflict between social classes and some anxiety about college.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1991
ISBN: 1-877946-06-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1991
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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