The American family—that one subject matter that's proven an undepletable mine for writers—gets another thorough going-over in Miller's second novel. And what rich veins she uncovers in a book that should further establish her reputation, even among those who felt skeptical about The Good Mother. Here, Miller widens her canvas to explore the complicated sources of trauma in a large family—Lainey and David Eberhardt, married shortly after WW II, and their half-dozen children who break down into two groups. First come Liddie, Mack, and Randall—the latter born severely retarded, the piece of grit in the familial oyster, around whom layers of emotional secretions form. In him, Lainey finds a perfect receptacle for love and histrionics. David, the cool psychiatrist who blames Lainey for Randall's retardation and can't allow his son to become the modus operandi of their lives, suffers stoically through his wife's three subsequent pregnancies (her way of making up for Randall), which produce Nina, Mary, and Sarah. These children, "the last straws," as David sometimes calls them, will bear the brunt of their parents' eventual separation and divorce. For a while, Mack stands in for his absent father, even while he undergoes a difficult adolescence during the Vietnam era. And years later, after Randall has been institutionalized, it falls to Nina to come to terms with the Eberhardt muddle—to embrace "the great loving carelessness at the heart of every family's life." Miller tells this tale from several viewpoints that produce memorable segments documenting Lainey's half. crazed, deeply sensual maternalism, Nina's struggle to see herself as an individual, Mack's identification with Randall (whom he once calls his twin), and David's hunger for a quieter life. Oddly, Randall remains the undramatic cipher, functioning largely as a symbol. Still, around him, the Eberhardts mesmerize, thanks to Miller's fresh eye and ceaseless probings.
Pub Date: May 1, 1990
ISBN: 0060929987
Page Count: -
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1990
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
BOOK REVIEW
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