A DAY LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT

Name: A DAY LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT
Author: Terry McMillan
ISBN: 0-670-89676-4

by Terry McMillan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 2001

Great storytelling with one catch: no plot. But McMillan's trademark earthiness and wonderful dialogue more than compensate....

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A great big family with “nothing in common except blood.”

Viola Price, 55, is a barbecue entrepreneur, mother of four, and grandmother many times over, thanks to the four children she “had so fast they felt more like a litter, except each one turned out to be a different animal”: Paris is a successful caterer and cookbook author with a taste for the best in life, including men; Charlotte, a tough businesswoman, owns several Chicago Laundromats; Lewis is an amiable alcoholic with rheumatoid arthritis; and Janelle, a housewife, is forever taking courses in interior decorating. When a sudden, severe asthma attack lands Viola in the hospital, the clan gathers in Las Vegas to be near her, eager to help and of the belief that their father's unexpected desertion triggered the attack, even though their mother insists that it happened because she was, as usual, worrying about them. Which doesn't change the fact that Cecil Price says he just walked out when he couldn't take one more minute of her bossing and bad temper. Viola insists that she threw him out, but, regardless, Cecil is no more to her than a “bad habit” she's had for “thirty-eight years.” To others, he's an aging hipster, with a blossoming paunch and an outmoded Jheri curl mocked by all—not that his new flame, a “welfare huzzy” with three kids by different men, cares. Viola, though, has had it: she doesn't want Cecil back, not in this life or the next. Anyway, the children have other things to worry about: Paris is a pill-popping workaholic; Charlotte’s a control freak; Janelle seems to be oblivious to her own daughter’s emotional problems, and Lewis is just plain drowning in a river of troubles. Nonetheless, Viola isn't shy about offering advice, and she gives everyone an earful—a favor they return. The reunited Prices squabble, swap life stories and some nitty-gritty philosophy, and get to know the best and the worst about each other all over again. Then they chip in to buy their ailing mother new furniture and a fabulous cruise to nowhere, until a second, fatal asthma attack fells Viola. Her legacy: four poignant, hilarious letters, one for each of the grown children she loved so fiercely.

Great storytelling with one catch: no plot. But McMillan's trademark earthiness and wonderful dialogue more than compensate. This bestselling author (How Stella Got Her Groove Back, 1996, etc.) has a rare gift for creating living, breathing people on the page.

Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2001

ISBN: 0-670-89676-4

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
IT WAS THE WAY SHE SAID IT
by Terry McMillan

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IT'S NOT ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE
by Terry McMillan

- BOOK REVIEW
I ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT YOU
by Terry McMillan

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.