Alfie wears his heart on his sleeve as he narrates this generous serving of mush.
The third from the English author Parsons (Man and Wife, 2003, etc.) is a maudlin tale of loss.
The high point in Alfie Budd’s life came in 1996 in Hong Kong. The 32-year-old expat British teacher was enjoying his polite students after five rough years in a London high school, and he was savoring life in a special place (the Brits turned over Hong Kong to the Chinese in June 1997). Most important, he had met Rose, the love of his life, a young and exceedingly smart corporate lawyer, also from England. His first glimpse of Rose and her “bucktoothed grin” came on the ferry. (Cling to that image, for there won’t be many others.) Though no beauty, Rose is adorable. The two soon marry and then, just as soon, Rose is gone, dead in a scuba diving accident. Alfie goes into a long funk, and two years later, in London, he’s still inconsolable, unemployed, and living with his parents—until his father destroys his own happy marriage by decamping with the very pretty Czech au pair. Doesn’t his father understand that “you get one shot at happiness”? Now Alfie has lost domestic stability as well as losing Rose; the only thing left is his beloved grandmother Nan. But Alfie finds some stirrings of life when he starts teaching again, foreigners from all over. Rose had married him because he was nice, but now he turns quite naughty, bedding four of his students in quick succession; his fifth target, a feisty English cleaning lady, holds him off. Maybe Alfie has more in common with his horny old dad than he thought. A more promising diversion is learning tai chi. Alfie’s instructor, restaurant owner George Chang, heads a happy three-generation family that Alfie can only envy. And then it’s time for yet another loss as Nan bravely, graciously, succumbs to cancer.
Alfie wears his heart on his sleeve as he narrates this generous serving of mush.Pub Date: March 23, 2004
ISBN: 0-7434-5664-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2004
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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