A compelling tale of the deceit, violation and anguish that undergird the myth of suburbia.
Jill Kane lives in a suburban dystopia. Beneath the Little League games, the lovingly packed school lunches, the manicured lawns and scrubbed kitchen floors lie the family secrets.
Working hard to maintain the facade of the perfect family, Jill is a talented architect who has risen to become the youngest vice president of Harris Development, the third largest design firm in the nation. Her husband, Gordon, is a well-respected cop, a devoted father to 8-year-old Drew and 4-year-old Addie, and a violently abusive husband. Afraid and ashamed, Jill hides bruises beneath her expensive blouses, popping emergency contraception after each attack. The pressure builds until Jill bolts. Her flight—and the reawakening of her affair with Jeffrey, a client—provokes even more persecution from Gordon. Jill swiftly finds herself battling not only for custody of her children, but also for her own reputation, as Gordon exploits his power within the police force to cast doubts upon her sobriety, as well as her fitness to parent. More sinisterly, Jeffrey turns up dead. Briefly finding refuge within a remote Native American community, Jill realizes that she cannot endanger others to protect herself and her children any longer. To truly escape Gordon’s control, she will have to destroy Gordon’s reputation, and her best friend, Connor, in-house counsel for Harris Development, is eager to conspire. Complicating matters, though, are her new pregnancy and a devastating diagnosis. Redfearn’s debut ratchets up the tension page by page, as husband and wife try to inflict the most damage on each other without harming the kids. Every character hides something, and each surprising revelation torques the plot further. The emotional and physical injuries mount, driving inexorably toward a surprising climax.
A compelling tale of the deceit, violation and anguish that undergird the myth of suburbia.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-455-57320-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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