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TRYIN' TO SLEEP IN THE BED YOU MADE

A sprawling, melodramatic debut ``by and about best friends'' that has enough plot twists and surprises for a season of soap operas. And, for all its attention to intraracial conflict and sexual politics, it eventually boils down to one affirmative, ``You go, girl.'' As their fortunes rise and fall in the world, the two unlikely best friends from the St. Albans section of Queens manage to take on the best qualities of each other. Patricia Reid is the hard case: An unwanted child of an alcoholic mother, she early on learns to be tough and self-sufficient. Gayle Saunders, on the other hand, is the pampered only child of a hard-working couple who eventually take in Patricia. While Gayle dreams of fancy clothes, a big house, and marriage to Marcus, a talented athlete, Pat concentrates on her school work, which earns her scholarships, first to boarding school, then to Princeton. She also discovers the black aristocracy on Martha's Vineyard and reinvents herself with a suitable pedigree. Marcus refuses to marry Gayle before he succeeds in major league baseball (which he eventually does), so she takes up with Ramsey Hilliard, a successful landscape contractor. As Gayle and her baby enjoy suburban living, Pat makes her mark on Mad Ave as a crackerjack ad producer. When the women seem to have grown hopelessly apart, tragedy reunites them. After Ramsey's gambling addiction bankrupts the Hilliards, Gayle and her daughter suffer one indignity after another, finally landing in a homeless shelter where Pat volunteers. Their tear-filled reunion, with Marcus now a celebrity athlete married to Pat, finds them both chastened: Pat has learned to temper her ambition with love, and Gayle has become practical and thoughtful. Driven by believable characters and no little sentiment, the two authors never lay on the molasses too thick. Not as literary as Gloria Naylor, this sisterhood-is-powerful first novel seems a natural for Oprah's Book Club. (Author tour)

Pub Date: Jan. 27, 1997

ISBN: 0-312-15233-7

Page Count: 384

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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