The entertaining machinations of the Blackford Oates series (Last Call for Blackford Oates, 2005, etc.) are missing from...
From the veteran political commentator and espionage novelist, a shallow tale of the unmasking of a bigamous presidential contender.
In the fall of 1969, at the University of North Dakota, Reuben Castle is a BMOC, editor of the student newspaper and a leading protester against the Vietnam war. He and his girlfriend, the French-Canadian Henri(etta) Leborcier, lose their virginity in a duck blind. When Henri discovers she is pregnant, she takes Reuben to her hometown of Letellier, across the border, where they are married in secret by her old Catholic priest. Henri then leaves to have the baby in France, where her father lives, intending to return after the birth; she is shocked when Reuben ditches her, breaking off contact. The story skips around over the next 22 years. At his father’s insistence, Reuben is drafted to Vietnam, where he cannily avoids combat assignments; he also avoids his father’s funeral, though the military has returned him stateside. Reuben, clearly, is a heel. In time he becomes a rising political star, with an eye-catching marriage to a former Miss America and an effortless entry into the U.S. Senate. He is taken up by prescient kingmaker Harold Kaltenbach, shopping around for a viable Democrat to run for the White House in ’92; he does not see Reuben’s womanizing as a problem. You may be reminded here of another womanizing liberal Democrat getting set to run in ’91, but this is no Primary Colors. His characters are stick figures, and Reuben’s attempt to suppress evidence of his first marriage lacks suspense; a prologue has tipped us off to his use of arson. The last chance for drama disappears when Reuben’s son Justin, now a student at Notre Dame and hot on his father’s trail, refuses to confront him in person.
The entertaining machinations of the Blackford Oates series (Last Call for Blackford Oates, 2005, etc.) are missing from this lackluster effort.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-123855-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007
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
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
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