Walker’s debut displays a depth of characterization that almost transcends the shopworn premise.
The anxieties of four suburban mothers surface as they plan a benefit for underprivileged women.
Janie, who never misses a Pilates class and can drink any number of vanilla lattes with caloric impunity, is the envy of her three girlfriends—Love, Gayle and Marie—all residents of upscale Hunting Ridge, Conn. But she’s desperately staving off middle age with surgery, not to mention a clandestine, motel-room affair. Meanwhile, Love, married to an ER doctor, has just received an unsettling letter from her estranged father that threatens to re-open a traumatic episode that halted her halcyon years as a child genius. Gayle, heiress to New England old money, is increasingly intimidated by her lawyer husband, Troy, who resents his financial dependence on her. Marie gave up a lucrative New York legal career for motherhood and a less demanding private practice in family law. The four friends are co-hosting a gala to take place at Gayle’s estate, proceeds to go to a women’s clinic. Gayle’s carefully orchestrated, pharmaceutically assisted life veers off course when she realizes Troy is bullying their young son, Oliver. When her cook, sensitive artist Paul, intervenes, Troy fires Paul. Love is suffering from debilitating back pain, and her mother, aging Hollywood actress Yvonne, convinces Love that her pain is the outward manifestation of suppressed emotions that will only be released by a confrontation with her father. Marie, for her part, is battling a powerful attraction to her law clerk, Randy. She’s handling a divorce case that explodes when she uncovers the secret behind the accidental death of her client’s toddler. The suspense here is largely dependent on withholding information from the reader. The identity of Janie’s lover could be revealed much earlier, as could the exact nature of Love’s childhood trauma, without detracting from the best feature of this novel: the characters’ ability to spellbind even as they whine about unhelpful, demanding, clueless husbands or otherwise appear to wallow in victimhood.
Walker’s debut displays a depth of characterization that almost transcends the shopworn premise.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36771-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2007
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
