Hilarious first novel and sendup of the Mafia, by the author of Devil's Night (1990), Members of the Tribe (1988), etc. Foreign correspondent and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner William Gordon (real name ``Velvel'' Grossman to his Jewish family) comes home for a respite as a columnist on the Tribune, pursues his bisexual but largely lesbian movie-star girlfriend Jupiter Evans, and finds himself the main inheritor of his late uncle Max, a Jewish mobster whose ties to the Mafia go back 50 years. In fact, Uncle Max is second only to the Godfather himself, 77-year-old Don Luigi Spadafore, who sits home in Brooklyn and tries to speak as wisely as Don Corleone. When the will is read, Velvel's uncle has left him $500 million in businesses: ``fifteen percent of the action on the Brooklyn docks, a third of the union operation, the Colombian business, the lottery tickets....'' It's all there but it's not there—Don Luigi has assumed full ownership. However, Don Luigi's consigliere Carlo Sesti has had an inspired idea: to take Velvel into the family's more legitimate operations, on a $5 million retainer, plus one third of the future haul, if prizewinner Gordon will use his entree with the more crooked world leaders to expand the mob's territory on a global basis. Gordon feels burnt out as a columnist, thinks that endless wealth will help Jupiter resolve her bisexual problem, says yes. His older, closest friend, deputy city editor John Farrell, signs himself on as Velvel's consigliere for dealing with Carlo Sesti. Farrell is an irrepressibly outrageous drunk, the fount of the novel's bubbling fun, and his ``masterminding'' leads Velvel and himself into a full-scale war with Don Luigi's vast army of hoods. Freshness everywhere, especially when Velvel goes on Peter Jennings's evening news show to describe Don Luigi: ``This Luigi Spadafore is a ridiculous old man who sits around in a smoking jacket covered with spaghetti sauce and talks in parables that would embarrass a third grader.''
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-679-40263-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1991
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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