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THE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Name: THE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Author: Stephen Marlowe
ISBN: 0-525-94049-9

by Stephen Marlowe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 9, 1995

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A novel that brings woe to a small army of would-be Poes is Marlowe's (The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus, 1987, etc.) latest plunge into the past. But, though the tale is enhanced by liberal borrowing from its subject's gothic and macabre fantasies, artifice overshadows art in the frenzy of cloning the artist. The real Edgar Allan Poe has a place here, to be sure, as the details of his marriage to child-bride, later consumptive, cousin Virginia are recounted lavishly, along with the poet's pariah status among the literati and the alcoholic excesses that led to a days-long disappearance and death in a mental hospital. The imagined course of that final week, however, gives rise to a bewildering array of vanishing acts and parallel dimensionsa series of events in which other Edgar Allans interact with characters from Poe's fiction to conduct an international search for his missing brother Henry (dead of consumption in real life). Characters are also caught up in a mystery involving magical shards from a shattered Polynesian idolshards worth killing because they could prevent an ancient cataclysmic event from recurring. As this drama plays out, several beautiful gray-eyed blonds in riding habits, all bearing variations of the Latin phrase noli me tangere (touch me not), provide the other Poes with ample additional complications. After failing to reverse the tragic turn of events in the imaginary realm, Poe and his femme fatale, both hospitalized and dying, reward those on the death watch with a few final mysteries before giving up the ghost. Too clever for its own good: a potentially exciting hybrid of the historical and the fantastic that ultimately self-destructs into an overly manipulated, quaintly academic exercise in parody.

Pub Date: Oct. 9, 1995

ISBN: 0-525-94049-9

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.