A bit rough but generally entertaining. At 105 pages, it’s worth a quick read.
Cole’s darkly humorous novella follows burned-out rock ’n’ roller Clifford as he cares for his abusive, mentally ill wife, Suzie, over the course of a day, years after his big shot at fame has passed.
Clifford loves his wife. It’s the only explanation for his staying with her in their dreary English home, trying to make sure she gets her meds and attempting to coax her former radiant self back into the open while she screams at him and tries to kill the neighbor’s dog with a brick. They met when she followed his band from gig to gig—a band she convinced him to leave when the record contract came and undersold his role in the songwriting. She’s obsessed with deceased Queen singer Freddie Mercury; she and Cliff had been regulars at a Queen tribute festival until a year before the action of the novella takes place. Her behavior at last year’s festival might bar them from attending again, though. When Bev, a new festival organizer, shows up at their door to talk to them about going, past behavior and a jealous streak intersect to create an awkward situation. Cole takes advantage of Clifford’s comic possibilities in this literary fiction with a surprising twist at the end. Clifford may be depressed and crusty, but he’s also a loving, doting husband coping with his own needs in a relationship that could charitably be described as distant. (One scene in particular stands out: Clifford at a news agent, attempting to obtain some questionable reading material in the presence of a candy-obsessed priest.) But Clifford is also the only character in the story with any real depth, though this quick read is so short and linear that it’s not much of a problem. The young Suzie makes an appearance as Clifford daydreams of a happier past, but in the present, she’s one-note as she yells at Clifford and eventually Bev. She comes across as dangerous and paranoid, but there’s little underpinning her rancor. In some cases, Cole goes for style over clarity, as in the critical opening scene, for example, in which Clifford prepares Suzie’s pills—although the coy narration won’t admit as much.
A bit rough but generally entertaining. At 105 pages, it’s worth a quick read.Pub Date: March 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1480021570
Page Count: 112
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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