Journalist and novelist Sheehan (Innocent Darkness, 1993, etc.) delivers a bloated and pretentious—if lively—saga of recent Vatican history as seen through the career of one very complicated man. Born to a neglectful American mother and a stiff British nobleman father, young Augustine Galsworthy is a handsome boy, but also a lonely and awkward one. Packed off during WW II to a French school run by Benedictine monks, Augustine is taken under the wing of a priest who's dazzled by the boy's beauty and has a vision of his becoming a cardinal. Finding in the Church the home his selfish parents and muddled nationality have left him craving, Augustine grows in confidence. He finds it difficult, however, to master his carnal temptations, and finally loses his virginity to—and fathers a son by—a woman who picks him up on the streets of Florence. Nevertheless, Augustine takes and keeps his priestly vows and rises quickly in the Church's ranks to become the second-youngest archbishop of the century and, ultimately, a cardinal who plays a critical role in selecting a new Pope. Though Augustine displays his faith through his growing dedication to the Third World poor, he schemes for favor with the relentless shrewdness of a politician or rising CEO, working his way into the intimate acquaintance of four successive Popes while indulging in borderline simony on the side. Augustine also develops a voluptuary temperament, surrounding himself with expensive art, defending the grandeur and ceremony of the Church against attempts to modernize it, and cultivating passionate, if technically chaste, friendships with a series of beautiful women. Finally, he himself is under consideration for the papacy, forcing him to reevaluate the way he's conducted his life. An odd mix of earnest history lessons, turgid efforts at literary prose, and genuinely fascinating glimpses of the inner workings of the Vatican.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-85541-3
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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