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REPLACING DAD

Name: REPLACING DAD
Author: Shelley Fraser Mickle
ISBN: 1-56512-017-5

by Shelley Fraser Mickle ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1993

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From second-novelist Mickle (The Queen of October, 1989): an engaging, sweet-natured account of a Florida family's survival in the wake of a father's desertion. The Marsh family lives in Palm Key, Florida, a small town where father George is a grade-school principal who leaves wife Linda and their three children—Drew, Mandy, George, Jr.—for Mandy's fifth-grade teacher. The consequences of the divorce are told in alternate chapters by deserted Linda and 15-year-old Drew. The emotional accuracy of many scenes rings true, and the fairy- tale nature of the upbeat narrative is forestalled long enough to be credible. Linda goes to work as a clerk in the payroll office at the town dump, and Drew fortunately has an accident with a Mercedes owned by the new doctor in town, Mark Haley. Haley, of course, decides to hire Drew's mother in his office, and the eventual romance that develops is perhaps too predictable. Meanwhile, there's the usual panoply of predicaments: the roof gives way, and Rex the Roofer makes a pass at Linda and sneaks into her bedroom; after obscene phone calls, Linda gets on unlisted number; the dog dies, and a new one must be found and named, etc. At ``Fort Marsh,'' life is never easy, but neither is it usually more taxing than the trials and tribulations of a TV sitcom life. Finally, Drew uses a fishing rodeo as the medium of rapprochement between his mother and the doctor when things seem a little rocky. Mickle doesn't entirely avoid sentimentality here—but she does zero in on the complexities of day-to-day survival and seasonal change to chronicle the way a family resuscitates itself.

Pub Date: May 1, 1993

ISBN: 1-56512-017-5

Page Count: 266

Publisher: Algonquin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.