Very entertaining, and McCauley digs a lot deeper than most authors of popular fiction.
An assortment of gay and straight characters uneasily assess their relationships with long-term partners, in McCauley’s tart-but-sweet fourth novel (The Man of the House, 1996, etc.).
Jane Cody makes lists in code, trying to hide from her devoted but dull second husband, Tom, the fact that she takes their weirdly adult six-year-old son, Gerald, to a shrink and has recently resumed seeing her own psychiatrist. But she’s so burned out from her job producing a Boston public TV show, shadowed by an ambitious, gorgeous young subordinate, that she forgets what the code is. Meanwhile, Desmond Sullivan grapples with ambivalent feelings about his longtime companion, Russell (who sells 1980s memorabilia in a shop on New York’s Lower East Side), and frets over his lack of progress on a biography of obscure pop singer Pauline Anderton. So Desmond takes a semester’s appointment at the college where Tom teaches, and his work inspires Jane to pitch a documentary series on “the true cultural influences: forgotten mediocrities.” She comes up with the idea to impress her philandering ex-husband, Dale, with whom she’s once again sleeping, but it also looks like a good way to pep up her career, and Desmond latches onto it as insurance in case his book contract gets canceled (his editor’s taking permanent maternity leave, and no one else is very interested). McCauley casts his customarily sharp eye on the romantic and professional contortions of Jane, Desmond, and the brilliantly etched supporting cast, most notably the fascinatingly ambiguous Rosemary, whose bestselling memoir, Dead Husband, raises intriguing questions about sincerity and truthfulness in writing. It takes a while to warm up to the intensely neurotic characters, but most readers will be propelled by McCauley’s storytelling and razor-sharp observations to a surprisingly warmhearted conclusion that undercuts its own sentimentality with the lurking suggestion that “something that’s true enough” may be as useful as the “essential truth” Desmond seeks in his biography. (P.S.: He finds it.)
Very entertaining, and McCauley digs a lot deeper than most authors of popular fiction.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-684-81054-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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