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A/K/A

Name: A/K/A
Author: Ruthann Robson
ISBN: 0-312-15469-0

by Ruthann Robson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 1997

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An occasionally bizarre tale from Robson (Another Mother, 1995, etc.), this about two lesbians who have assumed so many personal and professional disguises that they've forgotten who they really are. Margaret Smyth and BJ meet each other outside a professor's office but, blinded by defensiveness and fear, find it difficult to explore the sparks of sympathy between them. Margaret is on the verge of getting her law degree; by doing so, she hopes to transcend a traumatic past in foster homes, forget the early death of her lover, Dominique, and escape a complicated secret life as a lesbian prostitute. In that still on-going life, she assumes a different persona for each of her clients, managing to become whatever is required of her. For the unhappily married Ann-Marie, she provides sexual fulfillment; for unattractive Patty, she's a bleached-blond, big-breasted ``gorgeous'' date her mean-spirited cousin can lust after at his wedding; she's also a cover for disturbed Jeanine, a heterosexual woman molested as a child who now masquerades as a lesbian to keep her job with a gay organization. BJ's story is somewhat more conventional: She's a soap opera star who has many lesbian viewers but whose attempt to out herself in a fan magazine has been suppressed by the editors. BJ lives with her lover, Lenore, with whom she's raised Lenore's son, Malcolm. But Lenore, whose father married three women named Lenore and gave the name to all of his daughters, has her own serious grapplings with identity, actually suffering from bouts of insanity; when Malcolm's sperm donor shows up, Lenore runs off with him, leaving BJ worried about whether she'll be able to keep custody of Malcolm. Both BJ and Margaret yearn for solidity and connection, but their outward differences keep them apart through much of the story, even as their lives inch closer to crisis. A potentially intriguing meditation on lesbian identity, but episodic and too gratuitously weird to have much impact.

Pub Date: Sept. 12, 1997

ISBN: 0-312-15469-0

Page Count: 304

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah

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by Kristin Hannah

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THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.