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EDDIE'S BASTARD

Newcomer Kowalski pens an entertaining John Irving soufflÇ: a coming-of-age tale about a boy who becomes a novelist, having written a symbolic short story that he includes in a novel about a young boy coming of age. In August 1970, the baby William Mann is silently deposited on the porch of Grandpa Thomas Mann, Jr., the last patriarch of the once-wealthy founder family of Mannville, New York. Grandpa might have stepped on the child had not an F-4 fighter jet streamed overhead just in time—a pleasant Garpish touch. Like Garp’s father, William’s was a pilot, shot down a few months before in Vietnam. Grandpa Thomas raises the boy in a house full of ghosts and stories, including the one about the lost diary written by Civil War veteran Willie Mann. (Could it contain shameful secrets?) Across the way live the Simpsons, archenemies of the Manns, and their daughter Annie, with whom young Willie falls in love. A good Garp reproduction will feature an oracular woman who is scarred by sexual abuse, and Annie Simpson performs the role here, having been systematically raped by her father throughout her girlhood. She flees alone to Montreal, where she becomes—here, the proper Irvingite will, with Willie, sigh for the loss—a lesbian. But “maybe leaving her alone was the best thing. So I focused my energy anew on finding my mother.” With the encouragement of Dr. Connor, Willie’s authorial talent is nurtured, while all the loose strands in the story—the key to the Mann’s early fortune, the Simpson family curse, the identity of his mother, and the contents of Willie’s diary—come shudderingly together at nothing less than Grandpa’s funeral. Knock-off models are best enjoyed when the original is kept from view, and though its merrily familiar plot can make this somewhat difficult, Kowalski’s version will get you from A to B better than most. (First printing of $75,000)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-06-019355-7

Page Count: 384

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

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MAGIC HOUR

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

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