An intelligent, sometimes annoying, but ultimately exciting exploration of intolerance, superstition and the laws of nature...
Change–its ineluctability, the hopes and the fears it engenders–is the leitmotif of Tucker’s coming-of-age drama.
Byron is a defiant, whip-smart 15-year-old girl, as scornful of convention as her poet namesake, living in Louisiana bayou country in the early 1960s. Her guiding lights are her grandfather, because he’s “takin’ me places I ain’t supposed to go and teachin’ me about things I ain’t suppose to know”; her father, for his decency, encouragement and security; and her biology teacher, for introducing her to the scientific method. Because she has not been raised as a bigot–racism, sexism and religious fundamentalism hold sway in her town–Byron also finds teachers deep in the swamp, African-Americans who give her a sense of joy in living and a dose of the metaphysical to complement her empiricism. The tale pivots on a latter-day Scopes trial, learning the hard way about the evolution–namely, its glacial pace–of cultural change, and the hideous things people will do to keep the very notion of change at bay. Tucker bracingly charts Byron’s innocent, adolescent landscape to one littered with death and mayhem, not to mention delineating the landscape itself: The life-giving decay of the swamp and the putrefying rot of the town is rendered palpable. It could be wished for more subtlety and conflict in the characters, though: There are the agents of good who are a little too wonderful, even in their follies and lapses; and there are the rest, the agents of darkness and the clueless foils who serve to amplify the radiance of the good. There are also instances when Tucker subverts the bright pacing of what is essentially a thriller with extended didactic asides–evolutionary theory is understandable, but the history of evangelism and the story of industrial papermaking less so–that feel like heavy-handed lessons from a young-adult novel. That said, the thriller in here is riveting.
An intelligent, sometimes annoying, but ultimately exciting exploration of intolerance, superstition and the laws of nature and humankind.Pub Date: June 14, 2006
ISBN: 978-1-4134-6298-2
Page Count: 380
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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