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ANTIQUITY STREET

Life in Cairo and Alexandria is vividly evoked in this first novel from Egyptian writer Rami—but not vividly enough to compensate for an improbable protagonist and a theme that, in trying to mean so much, doesn't mean much at all. When the narrator, a young woman studying at Harvard, hurries home to Cairo because Dad—a former bigwig, a pasha, in pre-Nasser days—is desperately ill, she's surprised to find a young man, Alex, ensconced in her aristocratic family. For Alex is a Greek from one of the poorest quarters of Cairo—Antiquity Street—whose only claim to distinction is his white skin. But Alex is also a charmer, able to bewitch men, women, and animals. Our heroine— whose less-than-savory past is littered with a variety of sexual adventures, including a long-term one with an uncle who paid her extremely well—is soon smitten. Either because the story takes place pre-AIDS—the exact time is never clear—or, more likely, because that disease would be inconvenient for the plot, she isn't worried that Alex is also a homosexual hooker. She briefly moves into his seamy apartment; throws in lots of stories about the good old days when the poor knew their place; makes side-trips to Alexandria and the desert; and muses on the mystery she senses behind Alex's moodiness. When Alex becomes ill and dies, she at last learns the truth. Not only Alex but his golden curls were not exactly what they appeared when she first caught sight of his ``long-red silk scarf dancing about his gracefully modelled limbs.'' But no problem: ``thanks to him, I had been able to recover the blurred childhood images which Nasser had somehow tarnished—stolen from me.'' Good on local color and custom, but the rest is a tawdry muddle. Despite the claim, this is no competition to Lawrence Durrell's still peerless Alexandria Quartet.

Pub Date: June 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-374-10534-0

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1992

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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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