There’s violence, a little hope, and charity to be found in this truly excellent book.
To save their little community, a band of down-and-outers fights city hall in this tale set in a slightly fictionalized version of present-day Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In this novel’s first part, readers meet the characters who inhabit the Bosque community, such as Gerald Matthew Roger “GMR” Whittington, a boy who’s on the run from his mess of a family. Others include Tenn Dortmund, the sage bartender at local watering hole Rip’s; Richard Martin, an alcoholic, poetry-spouting pawnbroker; Helen Parch, a troubled librarian; the Rev. Halvard; kindly bar denizen Red Donnie; and many others. Largely a good-hearted bunch, they all care about GMR and want to keep him safe from his abusive family. They don’t just shelter him, but also try to teach and nurture him—they are that village that it proverbially takes to raise a child. But they’ve not only charged themselves with protecting GMR, but also with saving their own homes and livelihoods. Yet another bridge across the Rio Grande is planned—a bridge that will rip right through the neighborhood. What follows is neighborhood mobilization, bureaucratic tussle and hustle, and anguished questions meeting boilerplate responses. To the author’s great credit, there are no Frank Capra–esque or “Kumbaya” moments here, and midway through the novel, the plot really takes off. Novelist Jones (The Big Wheel, 2015, etc.) knows his bailiwick and its denizens well, and he shows himself to be a skilled and experienced writer. The scenes involving the local bureaucracy are both comic and infuriating; city councilman Benjamin Taylor is a typically smooth bully who has all the urban development arguments down pat. Readers can contrast him with quiet Dortmund, a man whose life might seem wasted, due to alcohol and prison, but who’s learned valuable lessons along the way.
There’s violence, a little hope, and charity to be found in this truly excellent book.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-942515-43-2
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Fomite
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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