A finely crafted, Anaïs Nin–centered fantasy with unexpected depths.
Levy (The Glittering World, 2015) imagines a lost diary from a legendary author, set amid the decadence and eroticism of Paris’s premier horror theater.
In 1933 Paris, Anaïs Nin languishes in her marriage to her husband, Hugo, only feeling alive when in the arms of her lover, Henry Miller, or writing in the pages of her extensive diary, which documents her “mirror life,” as her therapist terms it. When Henry’s wife, June—who’s captured Anaïs’ heart, perhaps even more than Henry has—leaves for New York City, Anaïs seeks solace in the grotesque, ribald productions of the Grand Guignol, about which she writes: “The Theatre du Grand-Guignol is nothing if not an ideal night out for the amorous, lovers who innocently enter the small Pigalle black box only to cling to each other in paroxysms of laughter or fright, the emotionally heightened scenarios blossoming like poisonous flowers upon the stage.” There, she meets the actress Paula Maxa, the so-called “Maddest Woman in the World,” who bears a fleeting resemblance to the absent June. In Maxa, the writer finds a new obsession—one to help fill the loneliness that has haunted her all her life—but for the actress, there is another: Monsieur Guillard, who stalks the streets of the theater district dressed in black. Soon, he begins to haunt Anaïs’ dreams—and then her reality. Levy’s prose is ornate and styled to evoke the emotions of his narrator and her sensuous milieu: “My dark desires, they have long carried a vast and primitive voluptuousness capable of opening doors between places I once thought locked forever.” With it, the author manages to effectively conjure his setting, but the illusion dissipates in the dialogue, which reads as more contemporary in style than it should. Still, the novel is phantasmagoric and appealingly melodramatic, and deeply rooted in Anaïs’ personal demons. The novel’s conclusion is surprisingly poignant, as well. Readers looking for a concentrated cocktail of Années folles splendor will find that this short erotic novel quenches their thirst.
A finely crafted, Anaïs Nin–centered fantasy with unexpected depths.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59021-717-7
Page Count: 159
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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