A courtly Richmond dilettante's visit to Philadelphia turns into a nightmare when he is mistaken—and mistaken, and mistaken- -for another man. As his train pulls into 30th Street station, a porter hands Tristram Heade his lost wallet. But it isn't his wallet, as he discovers after he checks into his hotel—not his usual hotel, but another one, where everyone greets him as Angus Markham, the name inside the wallet. Tristram can see a general resemblance between himself and the photo of Angus, but that's no reason why dewy Fleur Grunwald should turn up outside his door, announce that she's finally ready to take the advice he, Angus, gave her three years ago at Sarasota to leave her abusive husband. Trapped first by his fear of making a scene, then by solicitude toward Fleur, Tristram finds himself insensibly slipping into Angus Markham's identity, even as he realizes that Fleur herself has an alter ego named Zoe, whose words and actions bespeak a worldly knowledge and a thirst for revenge far beyond Fleur's experience. When Tristram goes to have it out with Fleur's maligned husband, Otto Grunwald, Otto calmly denies every one of Zoe's impassioned charges. Otto tells Tristram that not only does he not forcibly tattoo Fleur, as she claims he does, but that the tattoos that so horrified Tristram are fakes, vegetable oil rather than ink, applied by Fleur herself. Tormented by indecision about whom to believe, Tristram returns to the Grunwald home determined to prove or disprove Fleur's story once and for all—but he hasn't counted on the extent to which he's been charmed out of himself, not by Fleur, but by Angus Markham, and by the glass eye that seems to have been watching him ever since he picked it up outside Fleur's apartment. With echoes of Poe and Henry James, Smith (Snake Eyes, 1991, etc.) gives this anecdotal tale a shivery intensity. (Book-of- the-Month Club/Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selections)
Pub Date: March 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-525-93947-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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