A lyrical Southern tale of rippling effects.
A debut literary novel tells the interlocking stories of the denizens of a North Carolina town.
In the South in the 1950s, there aren’t any bars. The rich drink at their clubs or one another’s homes. The poor sip at drink houses. Harry Davis runs a beverage distributor in Winston-Salem, though he also oversees an illegal sports-betting operation with his friend Syd Siddon. One of Harry’s employees, Evelina Starlight “Big Rise” Peak—so called because she is the largest woman anyone has ever seen—is a former prostitute and Social Security check thief. Her younger brother, the simple but sensitive Homer Kenny, works for everybody: “Kenny is the fellow who is there if anyone needs anything—The Master of the Job, the Errand, the Task. He works for many people, does many things, knows more than they think he does and keeps his mouth shut.” Benjamin Franklin “Bo” Winphrie runs a drink house, sells drugs, and thinks enough of himself to adopt the first name of rock star Bo Diddley. After a fight about money, Kenny shoots Bo in the drink house; meanwhile, across town, one of Harry’s well-to-do clients accidentally drives his car onto the railroad tracks and is hit by a train. These two events send shock waves throughout the town, destabilizing the usual way of things in Winston-Salem and bringing its communities—rich and poor, black and white—into unexpected collisions. Glenn’s prose is full of color and motion, as here, during Bo’s murder: “The form of Bo stops moving and yanks like being startled, jerking to the right, a pulling back away like un-huh, no, no you don’t, and then Bo’s chin comes up and down like a fast nod and then he cat-dances back to the bar counter and slumps a little bit, but stays more due north than not.” The book’s cast is large, and the narrative hops between characters every few pages, though readers will eventually get to know everyone and can mostly keep track of them. At nearly 300 pages, it’s a long, dense, and meandering tale, but there is plenty about the author’s sprawling yarn to keep readers entertained.
A lyrical Southern tale of rippling effects.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5136-3623-8
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
© Copyright 2025 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.
