...is run by the inimitable Lady Dolores Bourhardie who is a firm believer in the sacred matrimonial institution. She also believes in herself as high priestess of advice to the unhappy wed who are on the middle-age brink of being lured into extramarital infidelity. She has reason; her paper's circulation has increased four fold. Her concern extends to a brooding passion for the destruction of one Septimus Tuam, Beau Brummel of London suburbia whose seductive enticements have turned many a dainty hand to write a tearful note to our lady, who decides that "only innocence can match the black heart of Septimus Tuan." Enter innocence in the form of one Edward, a man once driven to a monastery by the billboards of civilization. Edward, truly pure, is looking for maturity and a job. He is assigned to track down the elusive Tuam and eliminate him by threat or logic. Meanwhile, back in the boudoir, Septimus the snake is eyeing Eve the typical middle-class matron. Eve's husband James watches the marriage dissipate and dreams of a new, more romantic life. Septimus envisions new conquests, more money. Round the marriage-go-round goes played to a tune of muted farce. Mr. Trevor (The Old Boys, The Boarding House) is a superb stylist, blunting the comic edge with a touch of moral concern. He is adept at handling dinner-party prose and cocktail party caricatures. But he inspects rather than dissects, handling his situations at arm's length and, one would suspect, with nostrils pinched. The result is that the book becomes a trifle tedious. Nevertheless Mr. Trevor has wit, talent, and a claque.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1967
ISBN: 0140060103
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1966
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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