Davies (Murther and Walking Spirits, 1991, etc.) deftly combines metaphysics, magic, and modern medicine to tell a contemporary story with ancient roots as he introduces healer and ``cunning man'' Jonathan Hullah. A ``cunning man,'' according to Robert Burton, the noted Arabist, ``will help almost all infirmities of body and mind.'' Hullah, as a doctor who deals with that ``realm where mind and body mingle,'' is Davies's point man for the book's major theme: the links between the mind and disease, the recognition that ``disease is the signal that comes late in the day, that a life has become hard to bear.'' Hullah, recently retired, prompted by a probing question from a young woman journalist who is writing a series of articles on old Toronto, narrates the story of his life as a modern ``cunning man.'' Set in that urbane part of Toronto where art, academe, and old money comfortably mingle, the novel also explores familiar Davies themes of friendship, faith, and art. The journalist wants to know the truth about Father Hobbes, the rector of St. Aidan's who died while celebrating Communion. The old man was rumored to be responsible for miraculous cures. Hullah, who was present at Hobbes's death but neglected to conduct an autopsy, recalls his own boyhood in the deep Canadian woods, where he was saved from death by a local shaman; his years at prep school, where he met the two great friends of his life, Brocky Gilmartin and Charlie Iredale; his decision to become a doctor; and the war experiences that led him to practice a unique form of healing. Hullah is a clever man, with many diverting friends, but it is his old friend Charlie, now a devout priest, whose confession most surprises him and best illustrates the ability of both Davies and his characters to conceal cunningly what lurks beneath the surface. Ideas, aphorisms, and wit are as evident as Davies's more teleological concerns, which all makes for a splendid intellectual romp as well as an absorbingly literate novel. Davies at his best. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-85911-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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