The boys are almost too silly to believe, but Mary’s an excellent guide on the faintly ridiculous road that leads eventually...
The healthy lusts of an aimless young woman do battle with the overwrought imaginations of two young men who would be guardians of the Beat movement.
Mid-’90s suburban London is the setting, but “Jack” and “Neal” pine for midcentury America and the days of Kerouac and Cassidy in whose honor they have shed their baptismal names. Litt (Corpsing, 2001, etc.) cheekily narrates as the smart but rather at loose ends Mary, who, like Neal and Jack still lives at home despite being well past school age. Encountering the lads at what she thought would be a party, Mary stumbles into their meditation session and quickly develops a huge crush on handsome Jack while Neal gets a huge crush on her. She also makes a firm enemy of Maggie, current top chick in this tiny Beatnik revival movement. Mary, far from keen on the ’50s hipster business, is nevertheless willing to join the scene if it means being near Jack. The rules are, however, tricky and a little tiresome. Jack insists on conducting their lives as if the ’50s were still ticking, reading nothing other than the Beat canon, and even writing in that style. Soon, though, Mary realizes it is Neal who can really write. Jack does the usual Tortured Young Man stuff that morphs into wretched garage rock. She also realizes that if she’s ever to loosen Maggie’s death grip on Jack, she’ll need to capitalize on Neal’s affection for her. Which, with semi-honorable reluctance, she does. And then things get really tricky. As the only one with the use of a car, Mary is pleased to transport the lot to Brighton, where they will work on their newspaper and on the works of Otto Lang, a dead Beat poet. Maggie, furious at Mary’s participation, bails out, leaving the field clear. But the route to Jack’s loins is traveled with trusty Neal alongside all the way. Say, weren’t Kerouac and Cassidy. . . ?
The boys are almost too silly to believe, but Mary’s an excellent guide on the faintly ridiculous road that leads eventually to San Francisco.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-09-926839-6
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Marion Boyars
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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