Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries (Black Betty, 1994, etc.) always seemed to be moving away from tightly plotted whodunits toward his trademark high-energy riffs, and here he makes his move to the mainstream with a hazy, tender tale of a dying bluesman taken in by a hard-bitten urban survivalist. Kiki Waters, released from the hospital after taking the wrong side in a mugging, finds her downstairs neighbor being evicted for nonpayment. Anointing herself Soupspoon Wise's goddaughter, she installs him in her place, invites him into her bed (an offer he can easily refuse), and sets about hustling him an insurance card. In these early scenes Kiki comes across with the likable aplomb of a cartoon heroine, but she's battling monsters like nothing Supergirl ever faced: Soupspoon is riddled with cancer and haunted by scenes from a life eternally on the move. "Storyteller need somebody wanna hear what he got to tell," he announces to Kiki and, armed with a tape recorder, spills his fragmentary memories of the women he's slept with, the men he's seen killed, and his formative stint with legendary mentor Robert (RL) Johnson. Then, once he's in a groove, Soupspoon takes his act on the Manhattan streets one last time, hunting down Alfred Metsgar, a bass player he once worked with, and Mavis Spivey, his forgotten ex-wife—neither of whom is overjoyed to see him—to get their memories on tape. Meanwhile, Kiki has begun to dredge up her own suppressed recollections of an abusive father back in Arkansas and the nursemaid who rescued her. Even Randy, a storekeeper with the hots for Kiki, turns out to have a story of his own. As Soupspoon's delirium deepens, he and Kiki inevitably drift apart—though the final separation arrives with a bang—until their stories, magically cross-pollinated, find the separate endings they've been heading toward all along. About what you'd expect if Flannery O'Connor had had the time to expand "Judgment Day" to novel length: as dark and rich as the Easy Rawlins stories, but without the persistent lure of Easy's search for the truth.
Pub Date: Aug. 7, 1995
ISBN: 0-393-03802-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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