Britisher Faulks's first US publication: an observant, unpretentious, and moving story of a man's life to age 40. Recovering from wounds in Italy in 1944, Cpl. Raymond Russell meets—and falls in love with—a young girl named Francesca, who after the war becomes his wife and moves with him back to England. In 1950, the two have a son named Pietro, their only child, who 12 years later loses his beloved mother to cancer. From these beginnings, the novel unfolds, becoming the story of Pietro's life in 26 chapters, each named for its setting and arranged in alphabetical (but not chronological) order, starting, for example, with Anzio in 1944 (where Pietro's father was wounded and met Francesca), going on to Backley in 1950, where Pietro was born, from there to Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1980, where Pietro is on a photographic assignment, then back to Dorking in England, where Pietro's mother dies in 1963, and so on. The alphabetic device is offered (partly) in homage to a provincial fellow soldier of Pietro's father's who was awed by travel and ``said he wanted to spend a night in a place beginning with every letter of the alphabet before he died.'' If there's risk of the scheme becoming artificial, Faulks keeps the danger well at bay: his observant eye and intelligent voice easily and entirely captivate the reader, who follows Pietro from school in Fulham (1964) on through first love (Lyndonville, Vermont, 1971); from the pathos of a nervous collapse in Quezaltenango, Guatemala, (1974) on to the meeting of his wife- to-be in Ghent (1981); and from there through another decade of a sensitive and sometimes emotionally precarious life in which, say, descriptions of office politics and of a father's death can be, in their different ways, equally compelling and poignant. Life as it is—plain, human, real—made into the finest kind of art.
Pub Date: April 6, 1993
ISBN: 0-316-27547-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
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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