Not for the squeamish, certainly. Nonetheless, an intensely readable, often moving, and frequently shocking atlas of modern...
A sprawling urban epic of obsession, by one of our most ambitious (and idiosyncratic) contemporary writers.
Vollmann, in his Seven Dreams series of historical novels about the destruction of native America (The Rifles, 1994, etc.) and in his several works of fiction and nonfiction dealing with the lives of prostitutes in the modern world (The Atlas, 1996, stories; Butterfly Stories, 1993, etc.) has repeatedly demonstrated a prodigious imagination, and the ability to create memorable, if odd or obsessive, characters. But much of his work has also seemed repetitive, burdened with too many detours and authorial asides. This time out, Vollmann has brought these tendencies under control, and the result is a tale that possesses great cumulative power. The plot is relatively simple: Henry Tyler, a down-at-the-heels p.i. in San Francisco, is drawn into the search for a mythic "Queen of the Prostitutes," rumored to hold nocturnal court in the city's seedier precincts. He is still grieving for his lost love, Irene, who committed suicide. Complicating his mourning is the fact that Irene was married to John, his ferociously self-controlled brother. Henry eventually finds the self-styled Queen, but his discovery does little to relieve him of the burden of the past. John fares slightly better; there seems, at the end, at least the slender possibility that he's learned something from his disastrous marriage. The brothers are nicely complex and convincingly odd figures. But the story generates most of its considerable power from the voices of the many prostitutes Henry comes across in his quest. Their tales of addiction and abandonment, of abuse and of survival, are what makes The Royal Family memorable. Vollmann weaves their voices together with the voices of the Tenderloin's other inhabitants—drunks, anonymous johns, wanderers, hustlers—creating a haunting chorus of the lost. He also offers a precise depiction of place, capturing the darker corners of San Francisco with gritty exactitude.
Not for the squeamish, certainly. Nonetheless, an intensely readable, often moving, and frequently shocking atlas of modern degradation and despair.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-670-89167-3
Page Count: 800
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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