A mostly satisfying rendition of the complex mother-daughter relationship, told with edgy humor and deep sympathy.
An episodic first novel of divorce, motherhood, and coming-of-age in Manhattan of the 1970s and ’80s, by the author of the story collection Out of the Girls’ Room and Into the Night (1999).
Born-and-bred New Yorker Roz Rosenzweig marries midwestern Edwin Anderson, because she’s tired of being single and can’t believe how nice he is. But after the birth of their daughter Miranda and the death of Roz’s mother, their many differences cause the marriage to founder. “The Mess Under the Bed,” a chapter composed of letters to Miranda at camp, Miranda’s letters home, and camper reports, deftly depicts the family’s strife.(Nissen has an instinct for coupling sorrow and humor.) Edwin gone, 12-year-old Miranda finds a surrogate dad in an older boy who gives her piggyback rides and her first drink. Miranda is well-drawn; the feisty child and mixed-up preadolescent grow into a wily, first-in-the-bunk-to-have-sex teenager. Sometimes the wry here tone seems to breeze over this often disheartening account of the aftermath of divorce. There’s a comical quality to the scenario of Roz falling in love with Miranda’s orthodontist and moving in with him, only to have Miranda respond by having a furtive affair with Ben, the orthodontist’s son. But when Miranda and Ben learn that his father is carrying on his own clandestine affair, Nissen captures precisely the terrible feelings of these two teenagers who are still children but behaving like adults. After the orthodontist moves out, however, the story flags: Roz takes in boarders with their own problems, and Miranda has a disastrous affair with a teacher. At the close, she’s home from college for a potentially awkward Thanksgiving with Roz’s New Age boyfriend. But what’s important, Miranda realizes, is that she and her mother are still together: they have survived her childhood.
A mostly satisfying rendition of the complex mother-daughter relationship, told with edgy humor and deep sympathy.Pub Date: May 30, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-41145-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
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