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LOSING ISAIAH

Margolis attempts to follow the success of novels like The Good Mother and Kramer vs. Kramer with this domestic melodrama featuring a two-year-old black child, his birth mother from the projects, and his white, well-to-do adoptive parents—but with stock characters and an aloof, schematic writing style, his intriguing premise arrives still-born. Margaret Lewin loves her adoptive son, Isaiah, even more passionately than she does her natural daughter, Hannah, probably because of the unique, magical way Isaiah joined the family. A volunteer baby-holder in a Manhattan hospital, whose job was to lavish physical affection on abandoned, drug-addicted infants, Margaret fell in love with tiny Isaiah's determination to get what he needed—first through unceasing screaming, and now, at nearly three, through tantrums that could cause Attila the Hun to cower. Leaving Isaiah to the care of a children's center and an au pair while she pursues her career as a photographer's representative (and her husband, Charles, pursues a leggy female employee at his own graphic-arts company), Margaret alternately worries over possible lingering aftereffects from Isaiah's prenatal drug addiction and swoons in relief at having rescued the little boy from life with a crack-addicted, illiterate, utterly negligent mother. Little does Margaret know that over the past two years Isaiah's mother, Selma Richards, has found religion, weaned herself from drugs, and obtained a job as a nanny on the Upper East Side in the fierce hope of reclaiming her lost son. When Selma files suit for custody, the lives of all concerned begin to crumble in the cruel light of media coverage, while the best interests of Isaiah himself are nearly forgotten in the clash of emotions. Shifting from Margaret's to Selma's to Charles's to Isaiah's and other points of view, Margolis (False Faces, 1991, etc.) prevents the reader from identifying deeply with any one side, making this more an abstract intellectual exercise than a compelling work of fiction.

Pub Date: Oct. 7, 1993

ISBN: 1-56282-807-X

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Hyperion

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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