An exhilarating family tale when concentrating on the main characters, but the relationship fireworks and intrigue feel...
A coming-of-age story reveals a smart and strong-willed teen becoming a man in a new and unfamiliar environment.
At the beginning of this novel, Darwin Hastings is on a flight to New York from Pittsburgh to live with his football star cousin Luther Pinnelli. Darwin’s parents died years before, and his aunt can no longer take care of him. He’s ambitious and wants to study medicine after graduating from private school. His plans get muddled when he moves in with Luther, a self-serving celebrity who thinks he’s doing right by Darwin by denying him basic luxuries, making him live in a storage room on his estate, and denying him easy access to the money his parents left him. Darwin is able to overcome just about every obstacle with his keen intellect and genuine empathy for people. It gives him allies in the house, including Luther’s eccentric grandmother, house manager Mrs. Thomas, head of security Laszlo Forgash, and Luther’s girlfriend, Sweeney Pale. He meets Dr. Adrian Malverne on the plane and befriends his family, including two daughters, Helen and Coral. Darwin’s life in New York does not lack for adventure. Laszlo becomes a father figure, teaching Darwin how to drive and other basic life skills. Granny and Mrs. Thomas look out for him when Luther is neglectful. Luther is a philanderer with a gambling problem, which puts him in physical danger at one point during the story. Darwin must navigate all of this, including his friendship with Sweeney, while avoiding his cousin’s problems, getting into medical school, and figuring out his romantic life. Coles (Sister Carrie, 2016, etc.) offers an engrossing story in the first half that shows Darwin finding his place in a world that was set to reject him from the start. There is a strong dynamic between him and the other characters in the house, especially as Darwin’s integrity keeps him—and sometimes everyone around him—in line. That fades severely in the second part when the tale focuses more on Darwin’s relationships with women and a twist involving a murder mystery. Established storylines are unfortunately ignored. The most engaging element is watching these core players bounce off one another, and they do much less of that in the second half.
An exhilarating family tale when concentrating on the main characters, but the relationship fireworks and intrigue feel ordinary.Pub Date: April 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9961903-1-2
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Story in Literary Fiction
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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