In this darkly funny scuttle through academe's more covert passageways, Davies—a veteran provider of civil entertainments who's ever Jung-at-heart—first edges his people into medieval archetypes and unexpected passions, then caps the Scholarly spectacle with a splendidly horrid murder. Remote in his eyrie at the Canadian "College of St. John and the Holy Ghost" (known as "Spook"), austere medievalist Clement Hollier is oblivious to the adoration of a lovely grad student: half-gypsy Maria Theotky. (Though once, inexplicably, he "had" her on the sofa.) And Maria's narration alternates with that of Anglican priest/professor Simon Darcourt, who, along with Hollier, is one of Maria's "rebel angels"— those who "taught the daughters of men" after being exiled from Heaven. But she is also fascinated by the verbal stilettos of newly-arrived "Brother John" Pariabane: a Spook alumnus and self-de-frocked monk, a brilliant Doctor of Philosophy, an "important bum. . . a cultivated sponger," a bamboozler and mocking asp. So, while Darcourt chronicles academic monstrosities (including the prize-winning work of a modern alchemist working with human excrement) and Hollier boils with rage at nasty Renaissance scholar Urky McVarish (who has stolen a priceless Rabelais ms.), passions and jealousies brew. Soon there are even exotic visits to Maria's gypsy mother—as Hollier requests curses and Darcourt pants with love for Maria (due to a misdirected love potion). And finally: Parlabane, in a cloud of sulphurous malefactions, wipes Urky and himself from the Earth; Simon comes to his senses; Hollier recognizes love too late; and Maria settles for true love with a nice young rich man. Along the way Davies teases the modern scholars' "conventionality," playfully casting back to the saucy scholars of old. And though for rather a special audience, this is saucy stuff indeed—swept with vaporous invention and fertile with miraculous minnows of donnish wit.
Pub Date: Feb. 15, 1981
ISBN: 0140062718
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1981
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
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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