A throwaway product not worth the paper it’s printed on.
Associated Press reporter Molloy plumbs the shady side of his trade in a graceless debut about a narcissistic muckraker with delusions of grandeur.
Our narrator is 29-year-old Scott Thomas, a TV journalist mourning a recent relationship wrecked in part by his lack of scruples. In his quest to get famous, Scott agrees to go undercover, shooting in the inflammatory documentary style made famous by a host of filmmakers in the past decade. His target is the greasy kitchens of Gringo’s Southwestern Mexican Grille, a fast-food joint in Tempe, Ariz., instantly recognizable as the doppelgänger of a certain real-life franchise. He needs to move quickly: A loophole that protects the network from legal liability is about to close, and the chain is owned by Glen Ferndekamp, likely to be the next U.S. Secretary of Labor. Molloy tries to wring humor from very thin cloth by exposing his vegan environmentalist protagonist to the horrors of driving an SUV and the rigors of consuming the local cuisine. “In drug movies the hero narc has to do heroin to keep his cover…I have to eat carne asada,” Scott moans. Instead of running with the gags that actually hit the mark, like the profane but enthusiastic work song warbled by Mexican crewmates Juan and Carlos, the author obsesses over the none-too-subtle mechanics of unprincipled reporting and Scott’s tepid affair with his handler, Keegan. The primary moral dilemma, defending a pregnant coworker against the unwelcome advances of their racist, sexist supervisor, is flagrantly telegraphed. The ironic twist that derails the investigation is even more obvious, but it accomplishes the narrator’s goals in ways he hadn’t imagined. Molloy apes the least appealing aspects of Nick Hornby’s humor and the flattest instances of Bret Easton Ellis’s prose, then follows his own badly clichéd instincts to produce a novel at least as gross as the fast food Scott chokes down.
A throwaway product not worth the paper it’s printed on.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7535-1500-6
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Virgin Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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