STILLWATER

Name: STILLWATER
Author: William F. Weld
ISBN: 0-7432-0598-7

by William F. Weld ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2001

Echoes aplenty of both Mark Twain and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, but still, a very capably told, quite entertaining...

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There’s a lot of charm, and very little structure, to this flavorful tale of life in rural Massachusetts, from the former governor of that state (1991–97) and author of Big Ugly (1999), etc.

The story’s set in 1938, when the five towns of the Swift River Valley in eastern Massachusetts are scheduled to be flooded in order to create a 35-mile-long reservoir (this really happened: the result is the Quabbin Dam). Fifteen-year-old Jamieson Kooby, our narrator, is a de facto orphan who lives with his widowed Grandmother Hardiman, a feisty Yankee who’s “as close to an intellectual, or a bluestocking as … [anybody] in the Valley.” The impending loss of homes and farmlands is particularly galling to Jamieson, a Tom Sawyer–like country boy who does his growing up in the agreeable company of his best pal Caleb Durand, an unusual and abstracted girl named Hannah Corkery who resides at the local “poor farm,” and such interesting neighbors as goodhearted transient Hammy the Hobo and laconic Doc Crocker. Stillwater is actually two novels (one wonders if it’s Weld’s first): an episodic chronicle of country folkways and adolescent adventuring (complete with First Sexual Experience and discovery of the adult world’s hypocrisy), and a very casually plotted melodrama (which doesn’t pick up much steam until the midway point) about the Valley folks’ gritty resistance to the machinations of kickback-taking slimeballs (oily Lawyer Kincaid) and fast-talking defenders of the powers-that-be (smarmy Preacher Moncrieff). Weld does have a potentially terrific dramatic figure in the remote, enigmatic Hannah (who communes regularly with ghosts of the Valley’s former inhabitants), but he doesn’t give her nearly enough to do.

Echoes aplenty of both Mark Twain and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, but still, a very capably told, quite entertaining tale.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-7432-0598-7

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BIG UGLY
by William F. Weld

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MACKEREL BY MOONLIGHT
by William F. Weld

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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.