The American family—that one subject matter that's proven an undepletable mine for writers—gets another thorough going-over in Miller's second novel. And what rich veins she uncovers in a book that should further establish her reputation, even among those who felt skeptical about The Good Mother. Here, Miller widens her canvas to explore the complicated sources of trauma in a large family—Lainey and David Eberhardt, married shortly after WW II, and their half-dozen children who break down into two groups. First come Liddie, Mack, and Randall—the latter born severely retarded, the piece of grit in the familial oyster, around whom layers of emotional secretions form. In him, Lainey finds a perfect receptacle for love and histrionics. David, the cool psychiatrist who blames Lainey for Randall's retardation and can't allow his son to become the modus operandi of their lives, suffers stoically through his wife's three subsequent pregnancies (her way of making up for Randall), which produce Nina, Mary, and Sarah. These children, "the last straws," as David sometimes calls them, will bear the brunt of their parents' eventual separation and divorce. For a while, Mack stands in for his absent father, even while he undergoes a difficult adolescence during the Vietnam era. And years later, after Randall has been institutionalized, it falls to Nina to come to terms with the Eberhardt muddle—to embrace "the great loving carelessness at the heart of every family's life." Miller tells this tale from several viewpoints that produce memorable segments documenting Lainey's half. crazed, deeply sensual maternalism, Nina's struggle to see herself as an individual, Mack's identification with Randall (whom he once calls his twin), and David's hunger for a quieter life. Oddly, Randall remains the undramatic cipher, functioning largely as a symbol. Still, around him, the Eberhardts mesmerize, thanks to Miller's fresh eye and ceaseless probings.
Pub Date: May 1, 1990
ISBN: 0060929987
Page Count: -
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1990
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
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