Never diffident, Olson (Utah, 1987; The Woman Who Escaped from Shame, 1986; etc.) again boldly mixes philosophy, art theory, and a good bit on the aesthetics of landscape gardeners with a story that more often than not reads like a thriller. It has at its center a heroine, mysterious and beautiful, so we are told, who seems to make a lot of people, more usually women than men, fall irrevocably in love with her. Jack, the narrator, a landscape architect in California, recently beaten up by some thugs, returns to Chicago as executor of his uncle Edward's estate. Staying with his aunt, he begins to sort out Edward's paintings and to read the letters and papers that his aunt, Edward's estranged wife, has kept over the years, many unopened. As Jack reads on, he learns of his uncle's visit to the island of Lesbos, where he had seen a beautiful young woman, Dorit. Back in London, Edward meets up again with Dorit. Using skills developed as an illustrator for medical books, Edward soon becomes successful as a painter, although the surface of his pictures is merely covering for intricate drawings, and even hidden messages. One picture eerily prefigures a strange encounter Jack has while driving just outside Chicago. Another commands "find Angela," Edward's long-lost daughter. Jack's attempts to trace Dorit lead to the murder of two of her friends and the violent death of an art curator Jack had consulted about the value of the paintings. The plot twists and turns, as Jack returns to California, hides on the yacht of Dorit's former husband, escapes from the yacht in Panama, only to rejoin it as it sails to Lesbos, where all is explained, not necessarily satisfactorily. Olson writes with verve, even brilliance, and the plot here is often quite enthralling, but the discursiveness and ultimately the sheer improbability of his story detract from his considerable talents. Fascinating but flawed.
Pub Date: March 1, 1990
ISBN: 0671684868
Page Count: 442
Publisher: Linden/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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