An enticing romantic melodrama—about a beautiful, doomed woman and her varied effects on those who love her and struggle to save her—from Canadian author Findley (Headhunter, 1994; Stones, 1990, etc.). Lily Kilworth is remembered with affectionate wariness by her illegitimate son, Charlie, following her death (in 1939) in a fire in an Ontario asylum. Marshalling his own memories of her, together with information elicited from others, Charlie pieces together his mother's family background and history in a fervent attempt to learn the identity of his father and to understand Lily's mysteriously divided nature. It's a sweeping story, beginning in 1889 with the seduction of Lily's mother Edith (``Ede'') by a traveling piano-salesman, her lover's accidental death, and Ede's later marriage to his brother; the narrative bristles thereafter with a succession of passionate surrenders to impulse, grievous illnesses, untimely deaths, and recurring signs of Lily's ``madness''—in part the inherited ``falling sickness'' (or epilepsy) that keeps her forever on the fringes of respectable society. Life in Canada from the 1890's to the 1930's is evoked in convincing detail, and Findley's characterizations are both effectively specific and satisfyingly opaque. But it's all a bit too self-consciously Brontâan (there is, in fact, a revealing allusion to this influence in the names given a trio of housemaids). Tramplings by horses, convulsions, brain tumors, premonitions of death by fire, among other excesses, make for an overheated narrative—even granting the central presence of a heroine who once ``absolutely believed Elizabeth Barrett Browning was in possession of her being.'' We feel the fascination Lily Kilworth exerts over people, but we never fully believe the gothic circumstances that overtake them. No great shakes as a literary performance but, nonetheless, a generally absorbing saga that will probably be much in evidence around the beaches this summer. It's a cut above R.F. Delderfield and Daphne du Maurier, and one or two below Jane Eyre.
Pub Date: June 12, 1996
ISBN: 0-517-70307-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.
A forsaken family bound by grief still struggles to pick up the pieces 12 years after their mother’s death.
When famous author Gil Coleman sees “his dead wife standing on the pavement below” from a bookshop window in a small town on the southern coast of England, he follows her, but to no avail, and takes a near-fatal fall off a walkway on the beach. As soon as they hear word of his accident, Gil’s grown daughters, Nan and Flora, drop everything and return to their seaside family home in Spanish Green. Though her father’s health is dire, Flora, Gil’s youngest, can’t help but be consumed by the thought that her mother, Ingrid—who went missing and presumably drowned (though the body was never found) off the coast more than a decade ago—could be alive, wandering the streets of their town. British author Fuller’s second novel (Our Endless Numbered Days, 2015) is nimbly told from two alternating perspectives: Flora’s, as she re-evaluates the loose ends of her mother’s ambiguous disappearance; and Ingrid’s, through a series of candid letters she writes, but never delivers, to Gil in the month leading up to the day she vanishes. The most compelling parts of this novel unfold in Ingrid’s letters, in which she chronicles the dissolution of her 16-year marriage to Gil, beginning when they first meet in 1976: Gil is her alluring professor, they engage in a furtive love affair, and fall into a hasty union precipitated by an unexpected pregnancy; Gil gains literary fame, and Ingrid is left to tackle motherhood alone (including two miscarriages); and it all bitterly culminates in the discovery of an irrevocable betrayal. Unbeknownst to Gil and his daughters, these letters remain hidden, neglected, in troves of books throughout the house, and the truth lies seductively within reach. Fuller’s tale is eloquent, harrowing, and raw, but it’s often muddled by tired, cloying dialogue. And whereas Ingrid shines as a protagonist at large, the supporting characters are lacking in depth.
Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-941040-51-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy,...
Britisher Haddon debuts in the adult novel with the bittersweet tale of a 15-year-old autistic who’s also a math genius.
Christopher Boone has had some bad knocks: his mother has died (well, she went to the hospital and never came back), and soon after he found a neighbor’s dog on the front lawn, slain by a garden fork stuck through it. A teacher said that he should write something that he “would like to read himself”—and so he embarks on this book, a murder mystery that will reveal who killed Mrs. Shears’s dog. First off, though, is a night in jail for hitting the policeman who questions him about the dog (the cop made the mistake of grabbing the boy by the arm when he can’t stand to be touched—any more than he can stand the colors yellow or brown, or not knowing what’s going to happen next). Christopher’s father bails him out but forbids his doing any more “detecting” about the dog-murder. When Christopher disobeys (and writes about it in his book), a fight ensues and his father confiscates the book. In time, detective-Christopher finds it, along with certain other clues that reveal a very great deal indeed about his mother’s “death,” his father’s own part in it—and the murder of the dog. Calming himself by doing roots, cubes, prime numbers, and math problems in his head, Christopher runs away, braves a train-ride to London, and finds—his mother. How can this be? Read and see. Neither parent, if truth be told, is the least bit prepossessing or more than a cutout. Christopher, though, with pet rat Toby in his pocket and advanced “maths” in his head, is another matter indeed, and readers will cheer when, way precociously, he takes his A-level maths and does brilliantly.
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy, moving, and likely to be a smash.Pub Date: June 17, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50945-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
© Copyright 2025 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.
