An absorbing and deliberatively composed tale about reactions to trauma.
A literary novel follows two Southern families connected by an accident.
Josh Lovejoy has enough problems as a 17-year-old in Milledge, Georgia—a stern father and filmmaking dreams he’s unsure how to pursue—before he gets high and drives into a jogger. The runner turns out to be David Masters, a beloved local activist who is planning a congressional run: “Josh noticed something out of the corner of his eye, something moving, and then, before he could notice anything else, he realized he’d hit something, he’d braked, that something had happened.” Josh ends up sentenced to community service, but the accident has severe emotional repercussions for his parents. Helen, a frustrated painter, slips into a depressive episode while Hal, a severe clockmaker, moves into his shop and decides to wash his hands of his family. The trauma extends to the Masters household. David’s wife, Meg, a second-grade teacher, attempts to grapple with her feelings of grief, anger, confusion, and resentment—toward Josh, yes, but also her husband. David remains alive but comatose. He is visited regularly by the apparition of singer Peggy Lee, who forces David to examine an old friendship that started him on his career in public service. As five lives attempt to move past this tragic event, the bonds of love, family, and forgiveness are stretched to their greatest limits. Baker’s (Mail-Order Bride, 2017) prose is crisp and precise, tethered to her characters’ emotions in a way that imbues every scene and observation with meaning: “Their life together had always followed a punctual, orderly progression. Now the oven clock said 5:20 and the wall clock said 3:05 and then the digital bedroom clock...just blinked 12:00.” The characters are finely drawn, and Baker isn’t afraid to spend a lot of time on the way they process the eruptions in their lives (though, at nearly 400 pages, a little less time would have been fine). No major revelations or twists are hiding in the bushes. Rather, this is a serious and engrossing exploration of tragedy and the emotions that come with it.
An absorbing and deliberatively composed tale about reactions to trauma.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-944193-56-0
Page Count: 395
Publisher: Deeds Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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