SNAPSHOTS

Name: SNAPSHOTS
Author: William Norris
ISBN: 1-57322-183-X

by William Norris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 2001

Norris beautifully captures the intimacies of family life, but his self-consciously literary design only highlights the...

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Moving backward over 25 years, a series of verbal snapshots chronicle the history of a middle-class Catholic family from suburban New Jersey: a flawed but promising debut.

The Mahoneys are introduced in 1997 as they individually prepare to gather for Christmas at the beach house where their retired parents now live. Pat, who sometimes feels “misplaced” in his own home, and Liz, whose private longings have never quite been realized, are lovingly drawn but seem prematurely aged for a couple barely in their 60s. Thirty-five-year old Kate, the emotionally fragile oldest sister, takes medications that dull her senses but keep her sane and securely married. Second sister Patty, a single Manhattan doctor who’s just quit drinking, worries how the family will react when she reveals her alcoholism. Brother Sean flies in from London, where he’s a chef. Baby sister Nora is a large-animal vet who also happens to be happily gay. Norris jumps back five or so years at a time to trace how the siblings reached their present state. Kate struggles with recovery, breaks down for the first time, and shows intense sensitivity and artistic promise as a child. Brainy Patty verges on self-destruction as a reckless lush, drinks as a novice pediatrician to escape the trauma of dealing with dying children, juggles her adolescent good-girl facade with a secret life of drugs and sex, wins her father's favor with her bookishness. Nora falls in love with another woman, comes to awareness of her sexuality in adolescence, plays her role as family baby for all its worth. Sean, perhaps acting as the author’s stand-in, remains more an observer than a player over the years, defined largely by his reactions to the others.

Norris beautifully captures the intimacies of family life, but his self-consciously literary design only highlights the predictability and lack of genuine drama here.

Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2001

ISBN: 1-57322-183-X

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.