by William Riviere ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001
A promising premise and narrative style fail to create a resounding work.
British-born, Italian-resident Rivière's fifth novel, his American debut, offers an unconventional chronicle of a young Englishwoman's experiences during WWII.
A disjointed and distancing narrative slips from third- to first-person stream-of-consciousness and then back again, offering less a standard story than a collection of haphazard snapshots of events. Though the ensuing course is often muddled, the initial premise is simple enough: Kate Fenn, a pretty Londoner living with her left-wing Italian husband Gabriele D’Alessandria in their Tuscan villa, survives the emotional trials of war. The story begins with the marriage, in 1940, of Kate’s glamorous sister-in-law Esmeralda to a high-ranking fascist. Kate Caterina (the name is a union of her old English self with her new Italian life) has both a brother and a brother-in-law called up to fight, of course on opposing sides, and soon after Esmeralda's marriage Gabriele is arrested as a political dissident. Kate Caterina has no dilemma over divided national loyalties: she loves her family and wants them all home unharmed, and anyway she leaves all of that political mumbo-jumbo to the men. During the war years she attempts to win Gabriele's release by hobnobbing with officials in the Mussolini government (thanks to Esmeralda), guiltily admitting that she enjoys the luxury of evenings out. Kate Caterina’s duplicity, Esmeralda's desperate hedonism, Gabriele's selfish integrity, and his father's cynicism—all combine to create a decided distaste for this unpleasant cast of people. Moreover, Rivière's narrative, which alternates between a dry recitation of events and the idiosyncratic ramblings of the character's minds, leaves the reader with a highly impressionistic view of the story, something akin to watching newsreels without the sound. At the close, one is left with a spectral sensation, though it’s a bit of work to achieve such a flighty thing.
A promising premise and narrative style fail to create a resounding work.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-87113-839-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2001
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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