From Columbia University urban studies professor Coleman, two groups of zany stories, one about the experiences of an amiable white middle-class screwup, the other about those of an industrious black homeless woman. Beverly hails from a straitlaced midwestern family that typifies the preWW II values of the region. After passing a chunk of his youth in the company of a dying, eccentric old woman (he and she look at stamps together), he decamps for Antioch College and all hell breaks loose as he slides headfirst into the tempestuous beat bohemia of the '50s. He becomes an avid drunk, discovers sex, takes up with a madcap theatrical company, marries and divorces Otto Preminger's daughter, reinvents Broadway p.r. via a series of outlandish publicity stunts, and ultimately turns his talents toward the civil rights movement. This last enthusiasm takes Beverly down south and into several harrowing encounters with rednecks, and even gets him a kiss on the mouth from an arrogant, inflammatory black attorney. Later, Beverly's wild times catch up with him: He becomes a bad drunk, repents through AA, and undergoes open-heart surgery. Throughout, though, he maintains his genial humor, a sort of Salinger-lite that seems typical of midcentury masculine bon vivant-ism gone awry. Less engaging and witty are the more socially conscious Marigold tales. Following Marigold's quick introduction into the book, this wise woman of the streets (``she was tall and fat and black and topped by a great smokey tangled head of hair'') saves a beloved watering hole from being destroyed by a toppling World Trade Center (the result of an earthquake and a hurricane) and runs for mayor of New York. A first collection of cheery, terse yarns that often exceed expectations—most especially in the first half. In any event, the laughs are always genuine, and the social history of New York over the past 50 years is dead-on.
Pub Date: Nov. 12, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14549-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1996
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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