A luminously written debut novel, winner of the 1997 Milkweed Prize for Fiction, about love and ideals under siege in 1960s Uruguay. Though the story that Magda, the narrator, tells on her return to Uruguay after seven years abroad in exile is primarily a love story, it is grounded in the revolutionary politics of a particular time. In the '60s, activists, despairing of their country's totalitarianism, joined a revolutionary movement—the Tupamaros—to work covertly for the establishment of a democratic and socialist state. And though the leftist politics described here seem more often to issue more from the heart than the head, the discussions add a realistic dimension to a genre in which effusions of passion are more often the norm. Magda has returned to Uruguay because she has learned that her lover Marco is to be released from prison. She moves in with her old friend Emilia and begins to explain why she's been so long away. Magda recalls how, as the youngest in a distinguished family, she was brought up to be a young lady of traditional habits and interests; she describes lyrically the childhood pleasures of the well-to-do. But Magda also relates how she befriended the beggar Gabriela; listened as Emilia's mother talked of revolution; heard ChÇ Guevara speak, and was assaulted by the police in the subsequent riot; and admiringly watched Marco, a handsome young neighbor and soldier, attempt to help the poor. Soon a member of the Tupamaros, she spied on the US and British, was imprisoned, then eventually released only with Marco's help. But Marco, who had used his military rank as a cover for revolutionary activities, was finally arrested, and Magda fled the country. The two lovers are now reunited, but their happiness will be brief. Love and the past beautifully evoked in a faraway place, only occasionally marred by some intrusive agitprop commentary. The Uruguayan-born Bridal, now living in the US, is a writer to watch. (Author tour)
Pub Date: June 27, 1997
ISBN: 1-57131-013-4
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Milkweed
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
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
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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