Walton revisits the scene of his greatest success (Inside Moves, 1978) in a sentimental if engaging urban fable of inner-city basketball. Victor Worsley, a shrimpy white guy of 40-odd years, is sacked from his job as lead sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle for trashing the coach of the Warriors, the local NBA franchise. Before Vic's fired, however, Ruby Carmichael importunes him to scout her foster son, Spear Rashan Benedentes, a legendary figure on the Oakland playgrounds. At loose ends, Vic grudgingly obliges Ruby and ventures across the Bay into the heart of darkness with Greta Eagleheart (the flaky editorial assistant who has long loved him) to check out the 7'3'' phenom. What he finds is an outsized black Adonis with athletic talent to burn. Although a former substance abuser and equal-opportunity womanizer, Spear has developed character as well (thanks to the benign influence of a local Buddhist guru). When Vic talks about a tryout with the pros, Spear tests his sincerity with an invitation to participate in the rigidly structured pickup matches played in a neighborhood park. With Greta (part Native American) and Ruby (an ageless matriarch who communes with spirits) bonding in the background, the wary newsman joins the charismatic Spear and his mistrustful squad of wannabes (Juanishi, Pogo, et al.) on the court. In proving himself (with a deadly outside shot and tenacious defense) against top- flight rivals, Vic rediscovers—as the relentlessly noble Spear intended—his pure love of the game, one-on-one competition, and teamwork. He's thus free to arrange a scrimmage against the Warriors, which not only provides an exciting finale but earns Spear a shot at megabuck glory in the NBA. If he occasionally loses control of the ball in this effort to achieve New Age panache, Walton still scores in double figures with his fictive take on the city game's gritty realities.
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-553-37813-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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