Personal tragedy wrought by misguided political action keeps an Irish town on edge for nearly 30 years, in this forceful if flawed American debut from Irish ÇmigrÇ and former priest Phelan. No love is lost in portraying the Catholic Church and its representative, Father Quinn, a rabid nationalist whose support of Hitler from the pulpit during WW II and decades-long hounding of his parishioners for money to add an unneeded wing to the church have left them wary and quietly resentful. But the central figure here is Seannie Doolin, a 40-year-old boy whose intelligence and musical genius were snuffed out in childhood when he was forced to watch his twin brother murdered by an IRA team (the boys had inadvertently witnessed an assassination). The participants in that night's work have lived uneasily with the memory ever since, with Seannie's ravaged face (a blind eye, the result of a rock thrown at him when his brother was killed) and wraithlike presence a constant reminder. McKenna, the town doctor, has been drunk for 27 years, while another of the team has become a virtual monk, but the response of the vicious Mahon, who would have pulled the trigger but for an impatient comrade, has been to cover his tracks by killing the killer—who called him a coward—and by terrorizing Seannie at every chance. The night before the new church is to be dedicated, the past returns in deadly earnest, as Mahon's near- fatal beating of Seannie awakens the man in the boy, and he finally takes his revenge for what happened to his brother. Quinn, the IRA leader who ordered the mission, then washed his hands of it, is also called to account. Told from each man's perspective, Phelan's debut is initially a complex, even riveting narrative, catching especially well the fractured workings of Seannie's mind, but too many voices and a clichÇd howler of a climax prove the story's undoing.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1996
ISBN: 1-56858-074-6
Page Count: 230
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
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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