Evan is a dull protagonist, his decisions left unilluminated.
A ghost recalls his life, which culminated in suicide, in this low-key novel from Long (The Daughters of Simon Lamoreaux, 2000, etc.).
It’s 2002, ten years since narrator Evan Molloy shot himself at age 42, and only now are all his memories becoming clear. Evan had a house in Seattle; as a ghost, he is confined to the house and yard. He cannot manifest himself to the living, or intervene on their behalf, though he would like to help the current occupant, a single woman having difficulty ending an affair with a demanding married man (her story runs parallel with Evan’s). His feebleness in death mirrors the feebleness of his life, which he takes us through, ploddingly. He always lived in the Seattle area and had an okay childhood, though his mother split for Africa. His first job was as a business consultant. His first love, Claudia, became his wife; they were wildly happy at first, but after three years, Evan is unfaithful to her, with Frannie, a coworker. Why? He can’t explain it. Sex must have been part of the reason, but Long won’t write sex, which only matters here because it plays such a central role. Evan ends his affair (again, we don’t know why) at the exact moment Claudia learns of it. She leaves him. More than a decade later, they re-marry, Claudia bringing with her Janey, the difficult child of her failed second marriage. Once again, a happy marriage falls apart, and it’s all Evan’s fault. He gets angry for no reason. Claudia and Janey move out; his boss gives him a leave of absence. Evan’s optional suicide (“mine was a surmountable despair”) has no trigger; it is not artistically satisfying. How very different from a classic suicide novel such as O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra, where the drama flows from the gathering inevitability of the act. If Evan had taken the right meds (he’d been on antidepressants), we might have had a happy ending.
Evan is a dull protagonist, his decisions left unilluminated.Pub Date: July 10, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-54335-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
