Mallon (Rockets and Rodeos, 1992) has created an enjoyable, if depressing, novel about Henry and Clara Rathbone, who were sitting in the theater box with Mary and Abraham Lincoln on the night of the president's assassination. The fatal and fateful event appears to have pushed at least one of them over the edge, but even if the two young friends of the Lincolns had not been witnesses to that moment in history, they would have been a strange couple. Henry's widowed mother married Clara's widowed father when he was 11 and she was 13, and the two were raised in the same household. Upon introducing them Henry's mother instructed Clara to think of him as a cousin, cheerfully hoping to ``defeat complexity with inaccuracy.'' This quasi-family relationship did not stop the two from falling in love, but due to their parents' protests and Henry's involvement in the Civil War, they were not married until 1867, when they were in their early 30s. After Lincoln's death, rumors fly about Henry's inefficacy at the crucial moment, and even in later years that night haunts him, as in a scene at a dinner party when all the guests turn in Henry's direction after someone comments on what happens to people during moments of panic. Eventually, however, it appears that Henry's talk of all the whispering around him hints at schizophrenia and other psychological problems. He becomes intensely jealous of his flirtatious wife, who does her best to get Henry an ambassador's post abroad, since he drags the family—including three children— to Europe yearly in an apparent effort to gain anonymity. With a final, dreadful act, Henry makes a last attempt to keep together the family he believes is leaving him. No magic, but solid writing about two casualties of history.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1994
ISBN: 0-395-59071-X
Page Count: 362
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Steinbeck's peculiarly intense simplicity of technique is admirably displayed in this vignette — a simple, tragic tale of Mexican little people, a story retold by the pearl divers of a fishing hamlet until it has the quality of folk legend. A young couple content with the humble living allowed them by the syndicate which controls the sale of the mediocre pearls ordinarily found, find their happiness shattered when their baby boy is stung by a scorpion. They dare brave the terrors of a foreign doctor, only to be turned away when all they can offer in payment is spurned. Then comes the miracle. Kino find a great pearl. The future looks bright again. The baby is responding to the treatment his mother had given. But with the pearl, evil enters the hearts of men:- ambition beyond his station emboldens Kino to turn down the price offered by the dealers- he determines to go to the capital for a better market; the doctor, hearing of the pearl, plants the seed of doubt and superstition, endangering the child's life, so that he may get his rake-off; the neighbors and the strangers turn against Kino, burn his hut, ransack his premises, attack him in the dark — and when he kills, in defense, trail him to the mountain hiding place- and kill the child. Then- and then only- does he concede defeat. In sorrow and humility, he returns with his Juana to the ways of his people; the pearl is thrown into the sea.... A parable, this, with no attempt to add to its simple pattern.
Pub Date: Nov. 24, 1947
ISBN: 0140187383
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1947
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