A Deep South town erupts during the Civil Rights period in this ambitious third novel (after Cobb's Hermit King, etc.—not reviewed). Hammond is as segregated as any other Alabama town in 1961, but Eldon Long, pastor of its biggest black church and a follower of Dr. King, plans to change all that. His chief antagonists are the Mayor—banker Mac McClellon, anxious to preserve Hammond's image of racial calm—and Rooster Wembley, one-legged barber and Klan leader. Man-in-the-middle is O.B. Brewster, a local hero because he was once a professional ballplayer. O.B. has a farm- implement dealership with a largely black clientele; he is the only white man Eldon trusts, and the pastor is prodding him to run against Mac. Two white SNCC volunteers arrive; a lunch-counter sit- in is tense but peaceful. Then a boycott of white-owned businesses begins, and O.B. hurts badly; the turning point comes when he returns to his country roots, grasps the meaning of love-thy- neighbor, and decides to run for mayor. So far, so good; Cobb's people may be players in a racial drama first, individuals second, but the battle-lines are cleanly drawn and O.B.'s conversion is powerful and moving. Then, however, Cobb overloads his story with a torrid love-triangle involving Eldon, his wife Cora, and O.B., and with a wildfire romance between O.B.'s daughter Ellen and SNCC volunteer Paul, which triggers a near-fatal back-alley abortion for Ellen and the abduction of Paul and his fellow-activist by the Klan. Paul escapes, and all credibility is shattered when he hides in O.B.'s house for a month undetected. The sure touch Cobb showed earlier disappears completely in a last-minute flurry of arrests, breakdowns, and deaths. When Cobb is good (his taut confrontations, his quieter moments showing old people sitting around being old), he is very, very good; when he is bad, his writing dissolves into clichÇs. A maddeningly uneven work.
Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1992
ISBN: 0-688-11366-4
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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