A collection that includes a baffling fantasia that mixes sexuality, dinosaurs, and a quasar.
A debut volume delivers a trio of irreverent short stories.
A small bar on Jefferson Avenue in New Orleans is the focal point of the main story in Uncle Mike’s collection of three sketches. At this bar, the longtime patrons spend their time swapping tales, ogling lovely barmaid Valerie, joking with drag queens, and speculating on the nature of the universe. Two such regulars, Al Token and Henry Schmitt, decide to attempt to confirm with experiments (conducted on rats they catch at the dump) a theory that sound waves from a quasar are responsible for “turning” so many of the bar’s new clients gay (at one point, a habitué asks, “It looks like this bar is becoming a gay bar. Why are there so many gay people these days?”). That sound doesn’t travel through space is never mentioned as an impediment to the theory. Al and Henry and their fellow customers theorize that this quasar may have made all the dinosaurs gay before they became extinct, and they don’t exempt one another from doubts —characters are suspected of being gay if they have flower gardens, for instance, and they’re flat-out assumed to be homosexual if they have the latest smartphones. The collection’s other tales, “To Be or Not To Be” and “Pilgrim’s Day,” are lighthearted trifles, but the title story is an odious piece. The author prefaces it with a warning: “If you are not gay and want to stay that way, read this book today”—leaving few doubts about his two main implications: that there’s something very wrong with being gay, and that this is a work intended for readers who share that belief. The first is of course untrue (a thing that shouldn’t need restating in 2017) and the second warrants serious reflection—who would find this schoolboy mockery even comprehensible (flower gardens?), much less amusing.
A collection that includes a baffling fantasia that mixes sexuality, dinosaurs, and a quasar.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63524-355-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: LitFire Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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