An odd but entertaining novel of unexpected redemption.
Stephens outlines a washed-up golden boy’s second chance at enlightenment in this debut novel.
The greatest moment of Donald O. Gibson’s life was becoming the unlikely star of a Sugar Bowl game in 1952 when the third-string quarterback came in to win the championship for his Maryland Terrapins. Since then, Donald has had to work for nothing: jobs, women, friendship, and recreation have come to him based solely on that game. If this sounds like a dream life, it isn’t. At 47, he feels washed-up, empty, and devoid of any meaningful accomplishment. Then a chance at renewal appears from an unlikely source. He discovers that Aunt Dixie has died and left him her estate on the Hawaiian island of Lanai. All that Donald must do to claim the inheritance is to live there for three years. The catch is that Dixie was a member of a religious community—a nondenominational church that placed golf at the center of its teachings. Led by their “Kahuna,” an enigmatic man named Bobby Joe Hu, the congregation believes that golf is the path to communing with nature and achieving a state of balance. For a house in Hawaii, a group of religious oddballs and a few rounds of golf are no price to pay. But, as Donald should well know, easy gifts aren’t always what they seem. Stephens is a talented storyteller. His simple prose suits the quirky, original narrative. His characters are often lightly sketched, especially when first introduced, but when Stephens slows down, as when he describes the methodical practices of the church members, his gifts reveal themselves: “Dixie wrapped a string of the invasive Poka vine around her hand and followed it back to its roots….She dug until the roots had been pulled up and then she stuffed the detritus into the back pocket of her dungarees, all in the vain hope of keeping the Poka from growing back.” This book is about golf and God. Yet it’s also stranger than its leisurely premise suggests, and it holds some welcome surprises.
An odd but entertaining novel of unexpected redemption.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0990843702
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Saint Pete Press
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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