Poet Wolverton (ed., Hers: Brilliant New Fiction by Lesbian Writers, 1995) wears many hats—her ambitious debut as a novelist features several poems that could stand alone, a story-within-the- story that gives some needed distance from her characters (to tell what would otherwise be a now-trite incest tale), and a stark but melodious prose style. Professional photographer Djuna Rifkin doesn't know whether she'll be able to cope when her lover, writer Bryn Redding, goes into a coma following a car accident. The last thing Djuna expects is that she'll gain strength and courage from the most unlikely source of all: Bryn's mother Vera. Djuna knows, from Bryn, that Vera stayed married to Bryn's stepfather Chet even though he beat Vera and molested Bryn throughout much of her childhood; what she and Bryn had not known was the extent to which Vera has been living in miserable denial. Together, as Vera and Djuna try to coax Bryn out of her coma, they grow to understand her as neither of them ever has before and, in the process, become friends—of a sort- -themselves. When Bryn starts to recover, it is Vera—from whom she's been estranged for years—she turns to in a childlike way; she remembers nothing of the past five years, including all the time she's spent with Djuna. Bryn's femme friend Emily lends vital support to Djuna, Vera, and Bryn. Those who hope for a neatly packaged happy ending will be disappointed: Wolverton provides these women with no easy-outs. But she has created a woman-centered story to which any mother, daughter, friend, or lover can relate. One could argue that Wolverton aims too high here, but the flaws are generally overpowered by confident style and affecting characters.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-571-19891-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
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
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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