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BLUE GLASS

Name: BLUE GLASS
Author: Sandra Tyler
ISBN: 0-15-113225-9

by Sandra Tyler ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1992

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An unpretentious but accomplished first novel about the bittersweet relationship between a mother and a daughter, refreshingly free of either anger or sentimentality. Only child Leslie had loved her mother, Marion, without reserve. She delighted in her mother's love of birds and beautiful things, and in her ability to transform the mundane into the magical. Her mother gave the best birthday parties, was adored by all the neighborhood children, and was the most attentive of daughters to her own mother and father. But there is a serpent in every paradise, and little girls, even the most loving, soon turn into older and more critical adolescents, embarrassed by behavior once admired. Not only Leslie but father Dale begin to outgrow Marion's consuming love and need for reassurance. Insecure and timid, Marion is increasingly hurt when, over summers spent with grandparents in Connecticut and cousins on a lake, Leslie begins to demand more independence. But when Dale moves out, Leslie must cope with a devastated mother. And this she does, though at first it's not easy since she herself is suffering the usual turmoils of adolescence. Still, the two women adjust—``two women who have no alternative but to redefine ourselves''—and Marion slowly begins to create a more independent life for herself. At the same time Leslie realizes how little she knows her mother. As she prepares to leave home for college, she at last understands that her mother's ``love, when allowed to rest like a lion in the shade of a tree, could be peaceably admired for its beauty.'' Not major league, but one of those quietly compelling stories that touches the heart. A promising beginning.

Pub Date: May 15, 1992

ISBN: 0-15-113225-9

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
The Woven Tale Press Selected Works 2015
edited by Sandra Tyler

- BOOK REVIEW
AFTER LYDIA
by Sandra Tyler

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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.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

- SEEN & HEARD
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- SEEN & HEARD
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- SEEN & HEARD
NYT Readers Voting on Best Book of Past 125 Years

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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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.).