Something new from the acclaimed Israeli author of, most recently, The Book of Intimate Grammar (1994): an Alice-in- Wonderlandlike adventure tale expressing a 13-year-old boy's family confusions, fears, and fantasies. The story begins as motherless Amnon ``Nonny'' Feuerberg sits aboard a train that will take him from his home in Jerusalem to Haifa for an extended visit with his uncle, a ``distinguished educator'' and author. Nonny's widowed father, a police detective, wants some time alone with his fretful mistress (and secretary) Gagi—who, Nonny believes, is preparing to dump her undemonstrative and indifferent lover. The overimaginative boy rehearses in his mind conversations he's sure they must be having—and shortly experiences outrageous occurrences that, we gradually realize, are fantasized extensions of things he has half-heard and half- understood. For example, Nonny observes an eerie exchange of identities between a uniformed policeman and the criminal handcuffed to him, then is taken in tow (if not ``kidnapped'') by Felix Glick, a 70ish dandy who identifies himself as a master criminal, brings his young companion to the home of famous actress Lola Ciperola (who, not at all coincidentally, is Gabi's idol), and eventually reveals his own relationship to Nonny's heritage. These picaresque doings are frequently interrupted by Nonny's recall of earlier escapades (such as the time when his dream of becoming ``the first Israeli matador'' led to an embarrassing assault on a neighbor's cow). In piecemeal fashion, this descent into memories and dreams clarifies Nonny's inchoate knowledge of his long-dead beautiful mother: specifically, her tainted past and how it has intensified his desperate need to know who he is (``I was the son of a policeman and a criminal,'' he painfully concludes). Not nearly as much fun as it sounds. Grossman's fifth novel is so arch and opaque that it fails to draw the reader in. By the time we understand the motives behind Nonny's wild inventions, we've stopped caring about him. (First printing of 75,000; author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 29, 1997
ISBN: 0-374-29692-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose...
Sparks (The Longest Ride, 2013, etc.) serves up another heaping helping of sentimental Southern bodice-rippage.
Gone are the blondes of yore, but otherwise the Sparks-ian formula is the same: a decent fellow from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches falls in love with a decent girl from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches—and is still suffering the consequences. The guy is innately intelligent but too quick to throw a punch, the girl beautiful and scary smart. If you hold a fatalistic worldview, then you’ll know that a love between them can end only in tears. If you hold a Sparks-ian one, then true love will prevail, though not without a fight. Voilà: plug in the character names, and off the story goes. In this case, Colin Hancock is the misunderstood lad who’s decided to reform his hard-knuckle ways but just can’t keep himself from connecting fist to face from time to time. Maria Sanchez is the dedicated lawyer in harm’s way—and not just because her boss is a masher. Simple enough. All Colin has to do is punch the partner’s lights out: “The sexual harassment was bad enough, but Ken was a bully as well, and Colin knew from his own experience that people like that didn’t stop abusing their power unless someone made them. Or put the fear of God into them.” No? No, because bound up in Maria’s story, wrinkled with the doings of an equally comely sister, there’s a stalker and a closet full of skeletons. Add Colin’s back story, and there’s a perfect couple in need of constant therapy, as well as a menacing cop. Get Colin and Maria to smooching, and the plot thickens as the storylines entangle. Forget about love—can they survive the evil that awaits them out in the kudzu-choked woods?
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, stickily sweet but irresistible.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2061-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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