Despite lyrical prose, the narrative does not develop so much as unravel according to vagaries of chance. The Bruckners’...
Trinidad teen journeys to America in 1989, only to find herself trapped in thankless domestic drudgery.
At 16, Grace leaves behind her small island village, her crippled diabetic father, her devout born-again mother and her younger sister. Upon arrival in New York City, the cousin who had promised to meet her flight doesn’t show. She ends up in Brooklyn staying with Sylvia, a matronly woman she met at a Crown Heights street fair. But Sylvia’s apartment is crowded and toxic: Lead paint peels off the walls, and one of Sylvia’s three children is displaying neurological symptoms. Grace finds a nanny position in a Manhattan high rise with a Jewish couple, Miriam and Sol Bruckner. Her duties extend far beyond minding 3-year-old Ben Bruckner. In return for a bed near the washing machine and $200 a week (often less), she’s expected to do all the household chores, cooking and laundry. Sol is passive-aggressive and may have had an affair with a previous West Indian employee, and Miriam alternately praises Grace and berates her for trivial infractions of arbitrary rules. The Bruckners agree to sponsor Grace for a green card but evade Grace’s questions about the progress of her application. Grace finds solace among her fellow nannies, who, with their charges, convene daily at the playground in Union Square. Her friend Kathy, also from Trinidad, but from a wealthier family, introduces Grace to the nightclub scene. Dave, the gay man who occupies the penthouse of the Bruckners’ building, seeks her help with his indoor tropical garden and becomes, besides Kathy, her sole trusted confidant. By age 18, Grace has learned dispiriting truths about almost everyone in her new home.
Despite lyrical prose, the narrative does not develop so much as unravel according to vagaries of chance. The Bruckners’ casual cruelty beggars belief, but Grace’s inability to fight back is even more implausible. However, Brown is a new voice with much to offer.Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4013-4151-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Voice/Hyperion
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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