While the humor tends to be self-conscious and pedestrian, Jack ultimately learns the serious lesson that “the deeper you...
A constellation of characters whose idiosyncrasies make the family of Little Miss Sunshine look like Ozzie and Harriet.
Baz Madison, legendary ’70s rock musician of the Bazmanics, dies young and leaves a son, Jack, who inherits the town house of the title, a rambling four-story brownstone on Boston’s Beacon Hill, but 30 years later, when Baz’s royalty checks begin to dry up, Jack is left without much income (he’s a high-end color consultant who’s only interest is blending the “perfect” white) and an albatross of a house. Trouble is, Jack’s an agoraphobe, a condition greatly deplored by his 17-year-old son Harlan, who in honor of his late grandfather dresses only in ’70s garb because he’s decided that “the only real cool is uncool.” The house goes on the market, but Jack (called “Hermit Boy” by the neighbors) not only doesn’t want to leave—he can’t leave, especially since he’s developed nifty compensations for agoraphobia like the Groper, a contraption made of hockey stick, hanger and tape that allows him to get the morning newspaper without leaving the porch. Dr. Myron Snowden, Jack’s psychiatrist, periodically visits him at home but is unable to help. Only two characters are able to call forth Jack’s deeper humanity and desperate desire to overcome his isolation: Lucie, his precocious ten-year-old neighbor, who has aspirations of Olympic glory in ice-skating, and Dorrie Allsop, the realtor who lists the town house and whose debilitating and unsuccessful strategy consists of pointing out the flaws in a house because she believes the good points will take care of themselves.
While the humor tends to be self-conscious and pedestrian, Jack ultimately learns the serious lesson that “the deeper you hide yourself away the harder it becomes to come out.”Pub Date: May 8, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-113131-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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