A wise and witty first novel detailing the lonely days and nights of a single California woman—a quiet, melancholy tale infused with surprising and delightful whimsy. At 29, Leslie Kovalksy is still a drifter, having driven cross-country from her New Jersey home to take up a sort of borderline existence on the California coastline. A former ballet dancer, she does work as a paralegal, snips magazine articles, makes love with whoever asks, and wanders the beach at all hours, but she still hasn't managed to identify the life—or the man—of her dreams. A brief, obsessive affair with a hang glider leads her into a quirky friendship with Cornelia, his German, live-in girlfriend whose funny English (American men are ``weert''—as unsubstantial as ``sheddos'') endears her to Leslie. Wanting earnestly to do the right thing, Leslie helps pry Cornelia from her unhealthy lover and even finds her a job, but both attempts end in disaster. So do Leslie's frequent if tentative attempts at finding love: a handsome truck driver propositions her but fails to perform; a cousin of her boss's behaves piggishly and drives a ``penismobile''; an older friend and running partner turns inexplicably surly when Leslie lends out his books on how to swim; and even her next-door-neighbor, a possible Mr. Right, starts ridiculing her for how little money she makes. Bewildered by the frequent emotional eruptions of friends she's just trying to please, comforted only by Cornelia's ``weert'' English and the poetic musings of Dr. Love, a beach bum she encounters near her house, Leslie begins to sense that the secret to life lies not in the storyline she longs to create for herself but in mysterious fragments that resist being—and should never be—forced together. A poetic, sweet, and memorable story—and a remarkably accomplished debut.
Pub Date: May 1, 1993
ISBN: 1-877946-25-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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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