Davies (Murther and Walking Spirits, 1991, etc.) deftly combines metaphysics, magic, and modern medicine to tell a contemporary story with ancient roots as he introduces healer and ``cunning man'' Jonathan Hullah. A ``cunning man,'' according to Robert Burton, the noted Arabist, ``will help almost all infirmities of body and mind.'' Hullah, as a doctor who deals with that ``realm where mind and body mingle,'' is Davies's point man for the book's major theme: the links between the mind and disease, the recognition that ``disease is the signal that comes late in the day, that a life has become hard to bear.'' Hullah, recently retired, prompted by a probing question from a young woman journalist who is writing a series of articles on old Toronto, narrates the story of his life as a modern ``cunning man.'' Set in that urbane part of Toronto where art, academe, and old money comfortably mingle, the novel also explores familiar Davies themes of friendship, faith, and art. The journalist wants to know the truth about Father Hobbes, the rector of St. Aidan's who died while celebrating Communion. The old man was rumored to be responsible for miraculous cures. Hullah, who was present at Hobbes's death but neglected to conduct an autopsy, recalls his own boyhood in the deep Canadian woods, where he was saved from death by a local shaman; his years at prep school, where he met the two great friends of his life, Brocky Gilmartin and Charlie Iredale; his decision to become a doctor; and the war experiences that led him to practice a unique form of healing. Hullah is a clever man, with many diverting friends, but it is his old friend Charlie, now a devout priest, whose confession most surprises him and best illustrates the ability of both Davies and his characters to conceal cunningly what lurks beneath the surface. Ideas, aphorisms, and wit are as evident as Davies's more teleological concerns, which all makes for a splendid intellectual romp as well as an absorbingly literate novel. Davies at his best. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-85911-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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