An ambitious story of a tough woman’s experiences across four decades.
The first novel of Collins’ (The Hunter of Hertha, 2015, etc.) Midnight Valley Quartet tells the story of a Kentuckian’s long fight for survival.
From early childhood, Randi Jo Gaylor finds the world stacked against her. As one of 13 children in Notown, a poor, white section of Crimson County, Kentucky, in the 1940s, Randi Jo, dressed in sackcloth, spends her days begging and stealing food to supplement her meager diet of beans. Times are hard enough when her father is working as a coal miner, but whenever he gets locked up in jail or incapacitated with black lung, they become dire. As the years go on, Randi Jo confronts abuse, murder, racism, and burdensome family secrets. This traumatic life is seemingly dictated by Notown itself, where “meanness ran in people’s veins.” Randi Jo hopes to escape her environment when she becomes a teenage bride to a young man from a comparatively wealthy neighboring town, but the young couple eventually ends up back in Notown, nonetheless. Decades pass, and Randi Jo goes through a divorce, a violent marriage to a low-level gangster, and further degradation. At times, the tragedies of Randi Jo’s life come with dizzying speed, but the strong first-person narration and sympathetic characters keep readers emotionally invested in the twisting narrative. There are some awkward formal aspects to the novel—a “Fear Angel” motif is heavy-handed, and a 1980s storyline initially feels forced—but the way Collins portrays Randi Jo’s development over decades of trauma is quite impressive. The protagonist is supported by a rich cast of secondary characters, primarily her family members, who deal with the hands they’ve been dealt in their own ways. The scope of emotional experience and brutality in this novel is vast, yielding a rich, evocative tale of one woman’s trials. “Your life,” Randi Jo’s daughter observes, “has been about surviving it.”
An ambitious story of a tough woman’s experiences across four decades.Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-937356-31-6
Page Count: 428
Publisher: BearCat Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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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