A thoughtfully rendered story about the twin attractions of art and love.
A young musical prodigy wrestles with the burden of his rare talent in Openshaw’s (A Single Flash of Light, 2011) novel.
Teenager Kevin Phillips began playing the piano around age 5, taught by his mother, and immediately displayed incredible ability. He lives on the east side of Erie, Pennsylvania, in a working-class neighborhood, and he’s seethingly resentful of his wealthier neighbors, particularly those who attend the prestigious Walcott Academy. However, his parents insist that he audition for admission there, and he’s accepted. There, he has trouble adjusting and making friends, despite his admiration for his piano teacher, Mr. Hildebrand. He’s infatuated with a beautiful senior, Greta Lindsay, but also disdainful of what he perceives as her life of facile privilege. After Kevin’s father loses his job, plunging the family into financial distress, Kevin becomes more uncomfortable with the distance between the wealth of his Walcott peers and his own modest circumstances. However, Kevin’s talent leads him to win several major piano competitions, preparing him for a serious music career. Also, he learns that there’s much more to Greta than his class-oriented caricature of her. He attends Boston University, mostly to be closer to Greta, who attends Brandeis, and he builds the beginnings of a brilliant future. But he’s ambivalent about the competitive and professional aspects of his artistic pursuits. Later on, after his wife, Madeline, suddenly dies in a tragic car accident, Kevin abandons his career, moves to Utah, and finds work with the Forest Service. He’s forced to reconsider his life choices yet again when, after 15 years apart, he’s reunited with Greta, now a divorced mother of two. Openshaw artfully and patiently builds the relationship between Kevin and Greta, and their bond functions as a microcosm of Kevin’s development as a person. The novel’s protagonist is shown to be proud of his talent but also resistant to letting it fully define him; early on, that principled yearning expresses itself as a kind of arrogant haughtiness, and later, it’s chastened into maturity. The author’s prose is simple and free of literary embellishment, and the dialogue rings true, capturing the sometimes-clumsy character of real human speech. Openshaw does have a tendency, however, to unleash dramatic, jarring plot twists that feel contrived. For example, at one point, Kevin’s father spontaneously decamps for California and finds a new job that suddenly brings the family impressive wealth—a windfall that’s all the more peculiar due to the fact that it’s largely unexplained. Similarly, Kevin’s romance with Madeline, his eventual wife, is developed so quickly that it seems more like a parenthetical than a full-fledged subplot, designed simply to expedite Kevin’s rejection of a musical career. Nevertheless, Kevin does emerge as an engaging figure—a real genius who genuinely pines for a sense of normality. And Greta, while a supporting player, is every bit as deep, with a complex life shaped by a trauma in her youth that forever haunts her.
A thoughtfully rendered story about the twin attractions of art and love.Pub Date: April 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4791-3903-3
Page Count: 303
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
