Nonsense, largely, crafted to frame Fischer’s dead-on social observations and murderous wit, and if you’re in the mood, it’s...
An agoraphobe in London muses and reminisces. She has much to remember and ponder, most of it very funny indeed.
The latest excuse for a plot for Fischer (I Like Being Killed, 2000, etc.) to work his wit on is the morbid houseboundness of Oceane, a young dancer who found opportunity and support in Barcelona’s sex industry but who has since moved on to software, where she has made enough in licensing to live pleasantly in her own flat in a marginal but not life-threatening neighborhood. She doesn’t leave her building because she doesn’t have to and because it’s really repulsive in the streets these days. Oceane does do a bit of virtual traveling, and she makes trips to what she calls the “beach,” the common area downstairs where the mail sent to long-departed residents of the building sloshes around on the floor like so much flotsam. On one trip to the beach she meets Audley, a bill collector whose target left years ago. Oceane engages him to collect wages owed but unpaid by a business client, and then, when a letter from a ten-year-dead lover arrives, she sends Audley to Barcelona and farther to check that out. The dead letter trips memories of her days as a sex object that fill half the book, and effectively, since live sex is a funny subject and Fischer, when he’s on a roll, is about as funny as anyone writing today. Oceane’s colleagues are a mostly amiable lot. There are athletic lesbians from Dallas, a breathtakingly gorgeous and epically potent but totally self-involved bodybuilder (her partner in the show), and Heidi, who seems to be, well, a sexual black hole, a woman of spectacular gravity. Audley has his own story to tell involving the Bosnian war and, eventually, Oceane.
Nonsense, largely, crafted to frame Fischer’s dead-on social observations and murderous wit, and if you’re in the mood, it’s pretty wonderful.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58243-297-X
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2003
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
