Luvaas (The Seductions of Natalie Bach, 1986) takes the story of a family in dysfunctional breakdown and muddies it terribly through the use of different narrators. Aunt Debbie speaks first, diving into an incoherent story about flooding rains when she and her sister Jerri were younger. The rest of the cast is introduced in rapid succession: Jerri's philandering husband, Don; Don's son Olson, from a previous marriage; and Jerri and Don's children, Meena and Jeff. Debbie, Meena, and Jeff then trade off narratives (although Meena's are in the third person), often repeating the same stories without adding any new insight. Jerri is quickly losing her mind and falling deeper into drinking. Don is casual enough about his wife's decline to leave a message for Debbie (a stewardess) that reads ``CALL URGENT. JERRI'S FLIPPED. LOVE, DON'' and to make crude passes at his sister-in-law. (``My half-brother, Olson, claimed Dad finger- jobbed Aunt Debbie,'' Jeff reports.) Meena begins losing her mind and believes that she is a spider. Even a stint at Tranquility Acres can't dry Jerri out completely. The family moves from Oregon to California, but nothing much changes, and hints of sexual abuse in the past and the present—including a false accusation—barely move the plot along. The language used by all the characters sounds inauthentic: Debbie has a fondness for unnatural expressions like ``shit crystals''; Jerri's dialogue is awkwardly written to convey slurring (``Don' you ged it?''); and Meena favors slang like ``retro'' and ``weirdso-nerdso.'' Luvaas seems to want to confuse. At one point he has Olson befriend a boy named Olsen so that readers need constantly to recall which is which. In one of the few bits of outside context given, Jerri is described wearing a ``Jackie Kennedy suit,'' so this is presumably set in the 1960s. But this is an insular, claustrophobic tale told in choppy sentences by an author who takes sophomoric delight in silly, dirty language. Hard to follow and hard to swallow.
Pub Date: Nov. 9, 1994
ISBN: 0-399-13968-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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