Despite an overly deliberate pace, Miller brings into stark yet uplifting relief the limitations of morality when confronted...
How loyalty and betrayal occur within marriage and within friendship are the central but not the only questions raised in this quietly provocative domestic novel from Miller (Lost in the Forest, 2005, etc.).
In 1993, 37-year-old Meri and her new husband Nathan buy half a duplex in the Connecticut college town where he teaches history. Although Nathan and she have definite sexual chemistry, Meri is uncertain about the lasting power of their love. She is painfully aware of their different backgrounds, in particular his mother’s continuing affection in contrast to her own lack of maternal love growing up. Their neighbor in the attached house is Delia, the wife of former Senator Tom Naughton. Meri is drawn to Delia as a mother figure, but Delia, while friendly, is slightly aloof. While house-sitting for Delia, newly pregnant Meri reads a stash of Delia’s letters from Tom delineating the Naughtons’ private marital history. Tom’s infidelities made marriage impossible, especially after his fling with their daughter’s roommate, but Delia and he have continued to rendezvous since their public separation. Shortly after Meri gives birth to her son, Tom suffers a debilitating stroke and Delia brings him back to Connecticut to care for him. Delia comments that she and Meri are living parallel lives, tending a baby and an invalid husband. Actually, the ever-insecure Meri feels alienated from Nathan, unloving toward the baby and generally ugly and unhappy. Delia, meanwhile, is thrilled to have her husband completely to herself at last. But even semi-paralyzed, Tom carries on a sexually charged flirtation with Meri that destroys Delia’s temporary Eden. Years later, happily ensconced in her family life with Nathan and their three sons, Meri has found the capacity for love that Delia represented, but her remorse over betraying Delia remains limited.
Despite an overly deliberate pace, Miller brings into stark yet uplifting relief the limitations of morality when confronted with love.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-307-26420-6
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
