A first novel that lovingly evokes warm family ties and essential niceness but doesn't much move the reader as it chronicles the life of a quiet, good woman. In the six days between Maija's sudden death and funeral, various members of her family recall the pivotal role this Finnish- born woman played in their lives. Maija, who married a Finnish- American art historian, settled in Seattle in 1948. Soon widowed and left with a small daughter, Briitta, she spent the rest of her life teaching elementary school, studying art, and volunteering for good causes. To her family she was a quiet pillar of strength, dependable in any crisis, especially any that affected younger sister Leena's three children. Leena, who married an American academic she met while helping rebuild a war-damaged Finnish town, spent her life in Milwaukee, but the two sisters kept in touch through a long phone call each month. Now Leena recalls Maija's premonitions: the recent ones that seem to have foretold her death, and the long-ago one when Maija's fears about a relative's wedding day were proved right. Meanwhile, Leena's elder daughter, Kirsti, a literature professor, recalls how Maija helped her when her youthful marriage broke down; the younger daughter, Elly, a drama teacher, remembers that when she became pregnant during her senior year of high school, Maija found her a job and later took care of baby Rachel when Elly needed a break; and Joel, their brother, a freelance translator, recalls how, when he was drafted during Vietnam, Maija hid him in her car and drove him to Vancouver. Maija's funeral, conducted by a Finnish-born pastor, is, appropriately, a celebration of her life. A welcome insight into Finnish culture, with plentiful shared warmth and feelingthough uniformly simple and flawless characters keep it in the most minor of minor keys.
Pub Date: Aug. 7, 1995
ISBN: 0-940242-68-0
Page Count: 206
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
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
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
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