Pomerantz’s tale could use a car chase or an explosion, something to relieve its earnestness. The proceedings lack the...
A pleasant if insubstantial rags-to-yuppiedom saga.
Robert Vishniak isn’t quite the dictionary-definition aspirational young lad of many a Great Jewish Novel, but neither is he a shlimazel Alvy Singer type. In the opening pages of Pomerantz’s debut, we find him in the fraught milieu of Northeast Philadelphia, with “miles and miles of Jews, families of four, five, and more packed into long, solid brick rows,” an Italian or two thrown in for variety. Having moved in after years with the in-laws, Stacia Vishniak is keenly aware of expenses social as well as fiscal, and she “believed that hearing what things cost was good for children, like castor oil.” She’s right, though not without qualification. The years roll by, years of dogged competition with richer cousins, surviving first crushes and engineering furtive grasps and glimpses, and Robert finds himself paying attention to numbers, particularly the lottery number that will send him either to Vietnam or to Greenwich Village. The ’70s turn into the ’80s, hippies devolve into yuppies, and Robert suddenly has everything he ever wanted and more, which is never enough. Greed may have clarified things for Gordon Gekko, but it just makes Robert pensive, Patek Philippe watch and all (“waterproof, and platinum, with a large blue face”). What goes up must come down, of course, as Robert and his more ambitious brother Barry discover come that bad stock-market day of 1987—upon which, bless her heart, the much-put-upon Stacia, always an anchor and moral center, has the last laugh, for while all around her have been flying high, she’s been doing the sensible, boring things that keep civilization chugging along.
Pomerantz’s tale could use a car chase or an explosion, something to relieve its earnestness. The proceedings lack the pointed humor of a Joshua Then and Now or the pointed ironies of a Gatsby, but the tale is competent and readable all the same.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56318-5
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Twelve
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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
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
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