A high-concept, low-output Imperiled Mom scenario from the author of Losing Isaiah (1993), etc. Margolis starts with a nifty premise. Top advertising exec- -and aggressively single mom—Julia Mallet celebrates her 35th birthday by inviting six of her old college friends over and, at their insistence, taking them back to 1981 via another dose of the hypnosis she practiced like a parlor trick back in those days. But Julia's a little rusty; things get out of hand among her regressed buddies; and after they leave, she realizes she's forgotten to reverse the hypnotic suggestion she used to test the depth of the trances—that they each forget the letters D and H. Next day, a lunatic called The Wizard murders a woman from Julia's building, spray-painting a signature on the wall over her corpse: TE WIZAR. Obviously, the killer is one of Julia's old friends; their hypnotic regression must have shaken something bad loose from one of them. So now, instead of thinking of them just in terms of their shared past or their glamorpuss jobs (one's a cookbook author, another's a senator's aide, a third makes millions on the commodities floor; even the nonentities are a former valedictorian, a former pre-med, and a rolling-stone hustler), Julia has to wonder which of them has been hiding a lifelong secret. Margolis isn't much interested in developing any of the characters as suspects, much less bringing them to life; some of their personalities seem stuck in a single decade (the '70s type is trapped in a marriage with the '80s type). Instead he concentrates on the budding romance between Julia, whose controlling personality makes her like boxing better than sex, and her NYPD protector, almost-divorced Det. Ray Burgess, whose love life has never been what it might ever since his failure to stop a heinous sex killer from committing his last crime. Labored, thin, and amazingly unsuspenseful. (First printing of 35,000; film rights to Paramount)
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-380-97311-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© 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.
