A first novel that tells—solemnly if captivatingly—of a budding artist who seeks love and fulfillment despite her ignominious beginnings. She's not like other girls. At college in the early 60's, Lily Beach reveals a tragic sensibility in her dark eyes and in her clothes, ``always black or the color of bruises,'' that set her apart from her blond, sweater-setted classmates in the Art Department of the University of Iowa. Her seductive gloom, along with a compulsive need for sex that she secretly fears, attracts some strange ducks to her bed—Ted, an engineer incapable of expressing emotion; Will Sternhagen, a son of divorce unable to commit himself; and Andre Pulaski, a Paraguayan printmaker more than twice her age who chastely worships her and finally asks only to serve as her guardian angel. Lily has real talent but feels no particular need to fulfill it; she's more concerned with shaking free of the guilt caused by her mother's suicide the day after Lily told her her stepfather had tried to rape her. Therefore she drifts—first into a job with a Chicago ad agency, then into marriage to Ted, motherhood, and an empty suburban life on the sidelines of the swinging Sixties. Fortunately, though, throughout this overweight, dissatisfied part of her life, Lily's former admirers have not forgotten her. Will returns to help free her from her stultifying marriage, and Pulaski appears to reveal himself as the lover she was meant for—mere hours before his tragic death. In the end, Lily finds herself without a man (but with two children), picking up a paintbrush and dreaming of a new life lived on her own unfettered terms. Fields's prose can lack humor at the worst of times, but her portrait of the artist as a young (and aging) woman offers both a satisfying story and food for feminist thought. Like Lily herself, a strangely addictive—and intriguing—first work of fiction.
Pub Date: May 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-689-12176-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1993
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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