An initially engaging tale of an attorney behaving badly that ultimately instructs more than it entertains.
In Silverman’s (What Money Can Buy, 2011) novel, a lawyer faces disbarment after a woman files a sexual grievance against him.
Successful New York attorney Peter Morrissey practices divorce law. His clients are always women seeking lucrative settlements from their soon-to-be exes. As a self-confessed “satyr” (“the male counterpart of a nymphomaniac”), Morrissey routinely propositions his clients, even though the New York Bar Association’s professional standards prohibit such sexual relations, except where a relationship existed prior to the client’s retaining the attorney’s services. A woman named Molly Dixon alleges that Morrissey had sexual intercourse with her while she was his client (and that he billed her for the night). Now the lawyer must answer the charge in court and file a list of his female clients from the past five years, so he hires hard-driving criminal defense attorney William Duffy to represent him. But even as Morrissey faces professional censure and the loss of his livelihood, he still wants to bed his clients, as he finds all women attractive. Still, he hopes for leniency for his hypersexual appetites. The novel starts well with an amusing mix of dark comedy and chew-the-scenery dialogue, as when Duffy differentiates between women Morrissey “plowed” and the few he didn’t. Thankfully, Morrissey isn’t portrayed as a one-dimensional sleazebag; he’s likable despite his peccadilloes and admits that womanizing cost him his marriage. He even donates considerable time and money to Safe Horizon, an organization for victims of domestic violence. Every few pages, meanwhile, the hard-drinking Duffy comes up with another zinger; for example, when he snaps a photo of Morrissey on his cell phone, he says that he plans to hang it in the bathroom: “Every time I’m on the crapper, I’ll think of you.” The author shows considerable expertise in legal strategies and remedies; unfortunately, after the first few chapters, the book seems to be less a novel than a lengthy, point-by-point legal analysis. Legal professionals may be intrigued by this detailed accounting, but it may lack emotional resonance for others.
An initially engaging tale of an attorney behaving badly that ultimately instructs more than it entertains.Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481248938
Page Count: 246
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
