In his first novel about the persuasive powers of film, Lucas (editor-in-chief of Video Watchdog) puts poetic bite into seemingly banal material about one man's sexual fetish: the exposed female throat. Lucas ponders rather heavily at one point on the way the throat connects base animal instincts with the loftier reaches of the mind—serious stuff considering that his first-person narrator is a staid advertising executive first seen taking his lunch break at the old Eros theater in Friendship, Ohio. Here, the cinematic offerings are such fare as ``Sperms of Endearment'' and ``Dirtysomething.'' The author dismisses these low-budget movies as ``Mad magazine for brain-dead grownups.'' Then, flickering across the screen, comes the obscure ``Throat Sprockets,'' isolating women's necks as erogenous zones, showing tiny holes ``leaking thin, gleaming rivulets of blood'' as advertised in the poster. Yet the participants never shed their clothes. The arty voyeur is hooked on subtlety. In short order, he tries a neck embrace on his academic wife, Paige, who eventually divorces him for his audacity. ``You didn't go after my boobs once tonight—you imposter!'' she accuses him. Our boy then begins his lonely quest for a willing new partner who shares his obsession. He encounters Emma, who makes ceramics shaped like necks and becomes a kind of alter ego: ``A stranger cuts through your life as a kindred shadow,'' muses Lucas about the new relationship. But this novel is about romantic virtual reality and the impact of films on the inner life. Lucas's characters are in the service of an aesthetic conceit that veers between Dracula and Fellini-like visions of wretched excess. It's not long before Emma is not only allowing Lucas to sip her neck's blood but is offering him her pulsating heart as well. Wittily perverse, with often mesmerizing language, this is a virtuoso performance that is, well, draining.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-31290-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Delta
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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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