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THE HARD TO CATCH MERCY

Name: THE HARD TO CATCH MERCY
Author: William Baldwin
ISBN: 1-56512-025-6

by William Baldwin ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1993

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Episodes from a southern boyhood: family intrigue, post-Civil War history, race, religion, and superstition are all part of the mix in Baldwin's meandering first novel. It's 1916. Our narrator, 14-year-old Willie T. Allson, lives in the tiny coastal town of Cedar Point, South Carolina, with his nonagenarian Grandpa, his parents, Maum Anna, the redoubtable black servant who has kept him alive, and his playmate Sammy, Anna's nephew. The Allsons live in the shadow of the war, when the Union Navy destroyed the family home and a valuable dowry disappeared. Meanwhile, Willie's placid childhood is enlivened by the arrival of his go-getting cousin, Uncle Jimmy, whose aggressive courtship of Amy Mercy, a poor white girl from the swamp, precipitates a tragedy. Both Uncle Jimmy and Willie love Amy dearly; she dies suddenly (accidental poisoning), and her fearsome brother, the Hard to Catch (he excels at retrieving lost animals), disrupts her funeral and rides off with her body. The Hard to Catch is a devil- figure against whom Willie's silver cross offers only partial protection; his death at Willie's hands ends the novel and marks Willie's passage into manhood. Yet the conflict between these two erupts only spasmodically, competing with other incidents—like the arrival of mysterious Aunt Lydia from Paris, who smokes, paints her fingernails, and believes ``the Negro in the South was much maligned'': food for thought for Willie, who has accepted Grandpa's poisonous fantasies of a Negro uprising ushering in a cannibal kingdom. As the outside world comes knocking, and Uncle Jimmy and Sammy enlist, so the gentleness of the opening is eclipsed by a succession of violent deaths. Baldwin seems to back into this darker material almost inadvertently, suggesting a lack of control. That's a pity, too, because overall Baldwin's debut has considerable charm, tall tales and all. (First printing of 20,000)

Pub Date: June 1, 1993

ISBN: 1-56512-025-6

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Algonquin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
A GENTLEMAN IN CHARLESTON AND THE MANNER OF HIS DEATH
by William Baldwin

- BOOK REVIEW
MRS. WHALEY AND HER CHARLESTON GARDEN
by Emily Whaley & William Baldwin

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FENNEL FAMILY PAPERS
by William Baldwin

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.