A lyrical, gritty read with a compelling young protagonist.
Hess (Skyscraper, 2016, etc.) returns with a dark thriller set in late 19th-century St. Louis, where the lives of a teenage boy and a renowned architect intersect.
Fifteen-year-old orphan Calhoun McBride lives by the banks of the Mississippi River, a street-wise river rat surviving by earning a nickel an hour on the night shift at Snopes brewery—and often, through prostitution. When he’s saved enough for train fare, he plans to head west, perhaps to Wyoming. Clement Cartwright, originally from St. Louis but now based in Chicago, arrives in town for the grand opening of a celebrated skyscraper he’s designed. Also in town is the dangerous, deranged Belasco Snopes, the wealthy and powerful owner of the brewery that bears his name, who’s determined to take Clement down. One night, Belasco follows Calhoun to Clement’s hotel room and realizes that he can destroy the architect with what he’s found out about him. On the sidelines is the melancholy, 30-something socialite Dolores Brattridge, who, together with her husband, is to host a high society welcome dinner for Clement. Calhoun, Clement, Belasco, and Dolores take turns narrating the story, and Hess effectively gives each voice a cadence that reflects his or her education, background, and current station in life. Of the four, Dolores is the least developed; she interacts with each of the three other primary characters, but the storyline doesn’t particularly benefit from her narration. From the beginning, it’s apparent that Hess is a skillful wordsmith, capable of strong evocative prose: “At night, the Mississippi River is mean and ain’t quiet,” narrates Calhoun. “Dark waves smack the cobblestone shore and lick my dirty feet.” The melodic phrasing and riveting drama compensate for the fact that the characterization sometimes seems overwrought. The conclusion, if not quite satisfying, feels sadly inevitable.
A lyrical, gritty read with a compelling young protagonist.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59021-712-2
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Lethe Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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