by Ted Mooney ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1998
An ambitious third novel about the intersection of power and desire, by the author of Easy Travel to Other Planets (1981) and Traffic and Laughter (1990). Here, as in those earlier works, Mooney focuses on the distortions and dislocations of a world increasingly divided into two camps: those with money and influence, and those without either. Santiago D°az, a Mexican soccer star now running for the presidency of that embattled country, becomes entranced in New York by a couple so consumed with passion that they make love in public while he's giving a speech. D°az, a bright, somewhat laconic, troubled man, fearful that he's becoming ``a benign impostor of something he had once intended to be,'' finds the spontaneous nature of the act enticing, and he seeks out and befriends the couple. Edith works as a translator at the UN; Andrew is an estate attorney. They find D°az's attention both flattering and somewhat baffling. There's some degree of passion involved: D°az, happily married to Mercedes, equally bright and ambitious, is nonetheless drawn to Edith. A friend recruits Andrew and Edie to help stage a promotional event featuring D°az on the US-Mexican border, and their innocent actions further a plot aimed at destroying him. Mooney shares with writers like Robert Stone and Bob Shacochis a fascination with unraveling American responsibilities for the state of the Third World. Edie and Andrew, in a violent climax, have to face their own complicity in a system that uses force to preserve the status quo. But while Mooney moves the story handily along and writes with clarity and vigor, his characters never become either persuasively complex or particularly interesting. They remain types, and the climax as a result seems unsurprising and flat. Mooney clearly has strong ideas about the reasons for the world's dilapidated state, but this time out his ideas take precedence over his tale, producing an instructive but curiously unegaging novel.
Pub Date: March 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-679-41692-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1998
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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