But such a smart, uncompromising protagonist as Anna deserves a little dramatic momentum and a stronger plot.
The hyper-observant, gritty-honest voice that characterizes all of Schulman’s lesbian protagonists (People in Trouble, 1989; After Delores, 1988) is now cooler, steadier, and more refined—here, “Anna O.” meets “Doc,” post-Freudian analyst to the denizens of the doomed Lower East Side, and she finds love and a measure of peace in the process.
Jilted by a woman in white leather, and adrift in a world that rejects psychoanalysis, Marxism, all the good Jewish intellectual skills, Anna O. turns to Doc—a short, slightly pudgy Jewish guy who looks amazingly like Anna as a man. Funny about that. Anna is instantly helped by Doc even if he does live in a “basic” East Village apartment with no TV and barely any electricity because—observing this benign, slightly potbellied male—Anna feels liberated from two lifelong fears: “I feared being told ‘You want to be a man,’ and I feared being told ‘You hate men.’” Doc tells Anna that she’s empathy-less, that she suffers above all from an almost extinct ability to listen and care about other people's feelings—even the treacherous feelings of the woman in white. Anna confesses that in her whole long bumpy ride as a lesbian she’s always been involved with ambivalent bisexuals or wannabe-straights. Finally, however, thanks to Doc, Anna has one last stormy scene with “white leather” and breaks through to a new level of self-acceptance—and to a brand-new love. Schulman, as always, peppers her novel with some wonderful raw insights straight from the edge of the world on the Lower East Side.
But such a smart, uncompromising protagonist as Anna deserves a little dramatic momentum and a stronger plot.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-525-93521-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
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
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