A self-conscious but deft literary triptych; rarefied amusement.
A trio of conceptually overlapping narratives spans Anglo-American relations and matters of head and heart across the 20th century.
In her fiction debut, critic and magazine editor Lesser (The Genius of Language, 2004, etc.) layers three stories, at the heart of each of which stands an expatriate American female visiting Cambridge, England. All of the women consider the cultural clash; each confronts an awkward relationship with a man; each has greater or lesser involvement with political shifts, women’s rights and, above all, literature. Book One offers the most complex and referential anecdote, depicting Charlotte and Roderick, potential alter egos for Edith Wharton and Henry James, during a house party sabotaged by drunken servants. A disruptive and histrionic Italian boyfriend and Charlotte’s lover, Gilbert, also arrive, the latter announcing the death of Queen Victoria; inevitably, “the end of an era.” A meta-fictional first-person narrator stirs this abstract pot by claiming to be Charlotte 25 years on, although, “She doesn’t represent me accurately…everything you see, everything on the outside, is made up, or at least transformed.” Charlotte’s confusion and embarrassment at the perceived exposure of her less-than-respectable relationship with Gilbert (the two are not married) is comparable to the shame experienced by Sarah, the divorced writer in Book Two, whose encounter in the 1950s with another woman’s flirtatious husband offers at first excitement and then the realization that he’s just not that into her. The graduate student in Book Three grapples more predictably with Paul, an emotionally immature and repressed Englishman of limited insight. Throughout, nationalistic stereotypes jostle, semi-ironically, with higher-flown debates on artistry, aging and the individual. The mix is uneasy, ambitious and—given its length and span—superficial. The symbol of the pagoda, however, pulls matters together in an elegant conclusion, linking intellectual confidantes in a vision of sublime achievement set amid the prosaic spaces of Kew Gardens.
A self-conscious but deft literary triptych; rarefied amusement.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2005
ISBN: 1-59051-076-X
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Handsel/Other Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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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