Entertainment Lite: wisecracking and contrived.
Whitfield (Something’s Wrong With Your Scale!, 1999, etc.) returns to that trendy urban landscape where would-be cool black guys hang out trying to make the right moves on their women.
Whitfield knows his guys and their tastes, their habits and their fears—and, here, the story, told by bus driver Simon Washington, or, as he calls himself, “mass transit operator,” and by financial consultant Stuart Worthington, focuses on all of them. Simon, Stuart, Rod, and Trevor all grew up in the same Maryland suburb, work in nearby D.C., and have been friends since childhood. They're snappy dressers, like expensive cars, and enjoy kidding one another. But Trevor and Rod are married, while Simon and Stuart are not. They’re not ready for it, but they do need dates for the group’s annual vacation somewhere fun and warm. Alternately, Simon and Stuart each describe the women they’ve met recently—attractive but hard to pin down. Both of them—Simon’s Eve and Stuart’s Lynn—are always in hurry to go somewhere else, and both are mysteriously vague about the past. Failing to find dates for the upcoming vacation, and tired of being teased by Rod and Trevor for being so hopeless at relationships, both decide that perhaps Lynn and Eve should be the ones to accompany them to Cancun, the year’s chosen destination. Stuart cooks a dinner for Simon and Eve, then another for himself and Lynn, planning at each meal to extend their invitations. Clumsy foreshadowing, unfortunately, undercuts the intended surprise element of their, as usual, futile machinations. But these are good guys who deserve something better. True friends, they console Rod when he’s diagnosed with prostate cancer, and they mentor two reluctant but smart juvenile offenders. And, of course, good things eventually do happen to Simon and Stuart, who also learn much about women and life in the process.
Entertainment Lite: wisecracking and contrived.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-49846-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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