None
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Kansas again, Toto, Epperson (The Moons of Summer, 1994, etc.) ladles up another middle-American passel of sociopaths, felons, and just plain weirdos. There must be something in the water: Practically everybody in Epperson's judiciously unnamed Kansas neighborhood is up to something unspeakable. Riverpark Hospital chief of staff Clyde Conlan has taken his stricken brother Thomas home to die without telling Thomas's private nurse of his fear that her patient has smallpox. Craig Peterwell, who really likes birds, goes home from his Riverpark maintenance job to a wife whose carping he's had just about enough of. Craig is watched to varying effect by Mark Vaughn, a former burglar who's still out for the odd score, and by Chance Morley, a retarded adult who's the obvious suspect in the disappearance of 12-year-old Cyndi Melo. In this tinderbox, it's only a matter of time before something gives, and the something is Louise Peterwell's legs when Craig suddenly swings at her with a two-by-four, provoking an oddly related chain of reactions both ghoulish and funny. (Funniest moments: Chance setting Craig's birds free because he thinks he hears them pleading to get out; Craig dutifully consulting a psychiatrist and deciding he needs to put his relationship with Louise on a more positive basis.) In fact, Zane Campbell, the ex-cop who turned ocularist when a bullet rearranged his own face, and his two relatively normal boys have such a ripe basket of loonies to pick from that the revelation of who snatched (and killed) Cyndi is inevitably anticlimactic—any of these folks could have done it, no problem. It would take a Carl Hiaasen to sustain the demented tone of this feverish fantasy to the end, but you have to admire the unbridled imagination that peopled Epperson's neighborhood—even if you wouldn't want to risk living next door to the author yourself.
None NonePub Date: Nov. 27, 1995
ISBN: 1-55611-466-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
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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