Palmer's first novel-about a narrator's obsession with a beautiful woman who writes about spinach-is a lushly written narrative that brings to mind a Julian Barnes or Anthony Burgess rather than any American. The narrator is a struggling ``chunky, paranoid, poltroonish poet'' who ekes out a living selling paper cups of shrimp and crab to tourists in San Francisco before happening upon his true vocation: to love and serve as ``tester and taster and muse'' to Maria Perpetua (``born Maria Pengulling''), who is ``a demiurge, an oracle'' devoted-after a childhood consisting of equal portions of squalor and ``pink, puffy nonsense''-to writing The Gastronomic Hejira. In short, Maria is a quirky gourmet with a flair for prose. Once she reaches S.F., she takes on a female lover and feeds her into plumpness, whereupon she meets the male narrator, who quickly begins an ``inscrutable courtship'' (``By cooking, Maria was making love to me''). While the narrator helps with her manuscript, which focuses finally on spinach (spinacea oleracea), we treated to (or forced to bear, depending on your attitude) various lyrical descriptions of spinach dishes. Our narrator then undergoes a dark night of the soul, after which Maria finds a publisher and succeeds with her offbeat book beyond anyone's expectations. Meanwhile, the narrator, who has lost her, comes to write The Florentine Papers as ``a personal cleansing,'' and the story, surprisingly enough, even manages to descend into underclass pathos (via a subplot) while maintaining its cholesterol-laden style, finally ending with a whimper instead of a bang. His prose can be rich to the point of flatulence, but, still, Palmer's devised an original magical mystery tour that stakes out its own peculiar portion of the comic universe.
Pub Date: April 5, 1991
ISBN: 0-87905-364-X
Page Count: 160
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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