Affectionately drawn characters lift a morose topic into a companionable light.
The lives of three women are altered when a man dies on a commuter train.
Lou is paying little attention to the people around her; after all, she makes the trip from Brighton to London every morning. But then suddenly the man across from her is having a heart attack. His wife Karen is begging for help, but it’s too late. Everyone is asked to exit the train, and Lou shares a cab the rest of the way to London with fellow traveler Anna. The two strangers commiserate over the tragic event when Anna’s cell rings—it’s her best friend Karen, in shock at the sudden death of her husband Simon on that very same train. Anna returns to Brighton to comfort Karen as Lou goes to work as a youth counselor. The novel spans the ensuing week, as Karen prepares for Simon’s funeral and Anna and Lou, in their own ways, reevaluate their lives with this ever-so-sharp reminder of their mortality. Anna is a successful copywriter, but her home life is a mess—boyfriend Steve is a mean drunk, but she can’t imagine life without him. Lou lives a happy lesbian life in gay-friendly Brighton, but she hasn’t come out to her overbearing mum, and the secret is killing her. Meanwhile, Karen and her two young children are barely coping now that their family is broken. Anna supports Karen, and Lou with her counseling experience is there for them both. The novel’s strength—facing head-on the minutia of coping with a death—is also one of its failings when it occasionally reads like a self-help book. Sitting with the body in hospital, explaining to children about saying goodbye, how to reach out to friends and banish guilt—a week’s worth of it gets a bit too much. Nevertheless, Rayner never shies away from her character’s misery and ineptitude in dealing with the worst, offering a welcome dose of reality in the literature of female bonding.
Affectionately drawn characters lift a morose topic into a companionable light.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-250-00019-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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