A poorly plotted novel that nonetheless offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of analytical psychology.
After nearly losing her daughter and having her heart broken by divorce, a 56-year-old Greenwich Village psychologist gains the strength to welcome life’s pleasures—and pains—in this meandering debut novel.
It’s been roughly six years since Georgina’s world exploded. At the time, her then-teenage daughter Kate was suicidal, requiring constant care. And her philandering husband, Colin, had become inexplicably hostile to Kate, a stepchild he had helped raise. Since their split, Georgina has done her best to heed the advice of her friend Emma, who proclaimed: “You can’t lick your wounds forever if you want to be the heroine of your own life.” But Colin’s betrayal still stings. Granted, Kate has found her way out of the darkness; she’s happily married and expecting her first child. And Georgina’s focus has shifted to the present as she searches for ways to help her sister Julia, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Yet both mother and daughter continue to confront unresolved issues. Kate is working on a graphic novel based on her experiences with depression. Georgina finds her dreams frequently returning to the subject of her ex-husband. As both women seek new beginnings, can they use their past traumas to build a better future? An unfocused narrative undermines Plunket’s attempt to fictionalize the therapeutic journey of self-discovery. Conversations and ruminations about psychological and spiritual theories are intellectually stimulating, but they do little to drive a thin plot forward. Key events seem to be missing from the book. Georgina spends time preparing to talk about her husband’s affair with a writer from Psychology Today, but that storyline is dropped with no indication of whether the interview ran. Likewise, Kate and her husband think long and hard about whether they should attend his mother’s wedding, but after they decide to go, the novel says nothing about the event itself. The omissions point to a larger flaw. While Plunket writes masterfully about the past, she pays too little attention to the day-to-day lives of her characters.
A poorly plotted novel that nonetheless offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of analytical psychology.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9857152-5-0
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Deeper Well Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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