Make it new, said Pound, and Dobyns always does: this account of four extraordinary weeks in the life of a large Chilean family, sheltering from a series of earthquakes, is his best novel yet. The Big One rocked southern Chile on May 22, 1960, to be followed by months of smaller quakes and tremors, mudslides and tsunamis. Four thousand people were killed; the moon turned blood-red; many believed the end of the world was at hand. The solidly bourgeois Droppelman family of Puerto Varas experiences convulsions of its own, culminating in scandal. The story is told by eight-year-old Lucy, whose father, a cattle merchant, is killed by a falling chimney brick; she and her two brothers take refuge in their grandparents' farmhouse. Lucy's grandmother is overjoyed by the quake, since she has all her brood under one roof; very much the controlling matriarch, she envisions them all dying and entering Heaven together. Ironically, the opposite will happen: they will survive, but fragmentedbecause the earthquake frees the adults from conventional restraints. Great-aunt Clotilde dresses up for Death in her sister's wedding gown; gluttonous Uncle Walterio steals his nephew's candy; Aunt Miriam is permanently tipsy. Uncles Hellmuth and Alcibiades, formerly best friends, fall out when Alcibiades becomes infatuated with Hellmuth's wife, a self-absorbed coquette; there is a bloody fistfight, and Alcibiades leaves town. Lucy herself, devastated by her rather's death, almost dies from a fever; her perspective is enriched by flash-forwards in which, 30 years later, the mature Lucy ponders the nature of memory and experience. Our often hapless attempts to control our lives are a common thread in Dobyns's work. But while Cold Dog Soup (1985) and The Two Deaths of Se§ora Puccini (1988) rested on outlandish premises, here Dobyns hits pay dirt with a credible situation that fits his preoccupations like a glove. In addition, little Lucy's beautifully modulated voice brings the hitherto missing ingredients of compassion and tenderness to this eccentric mÇnage.
Pub Date: June 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-670-83914-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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