bookpagedev

Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

vid portrait of a time of flux in an ancient country, Peter Hessler’s River Town is a moving account of his experiences as a foreigner or waiguoren in small-town China. Hessler, who spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in a city called Fuling, a Yangtze River town in southwestern China, taught English and American literature at Fuling Teachers College, and the classroom provides the backdrop for many of the events that comprise his impressive first book. Hessler provides lucid narration of his time at the college, recounting moments of humor and gravity in wonderful, precise detail. Many of his shy, eager students are of the peasant stock that populates the remote countryside, and some of them have taken on American names. His classes contain a male student named Daisy, as well as a young woman who calls herself Keller, in honor of Helen Keller. Teaching always a reciprocal process is especially so in this case, as eye-opening for Hessler as it is for his pupils. Preoccupied with politics, the young people are diehard Communists, and party rhetoric invades analyses of Hamlet and Robin Hood. With the finesse of a great teacher, Hessler manages to steer his students in more appropriate directions. “I wasn’t so enthusiastic about Shakespeare’s becoming a party spokesman,” he writes.

Mixed in with Hessler’s account of his teaching duties in Fuling are history-making events like the return of Hong Kong to the control of the mainlaind Chinese government and the death of Deng Xiaoping. Blending these momentous happenings with everyday incidents, Hessler delivers a balanced look at his time as a stranger in a strange land. In the end, for the author, the townspeople become a source of both animosity and support. While he experiences regular heckling because he is a foreigner, Hessler also makes friends among the restaurateurs whose establishments he frequents. He even spends the night before Chinese New Year with the family of one of the restaurant owners. “They knew that I was alone on the holiday, and I was their friend; nothing else mattered,” Hessler writes. “They were simply big-hearted people and that was the best meal I ever had in China.” Eliza McGraw writes from Maryland.

vid portrait of a time of flux in an ancient country, Peter Hessler's River Town is a moving account of his experiences as a foreigner or waiguoren in small-town China. Hessler, who spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in a city called Fuling,…
Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, and what better gift for kissers of all ages than A Book of Kisses? There are all kinds of kisses in the world, begins the book, as author Dave Ross takes a lighthearted, yet affectionate look at a variety of kisses.

And at long last, some of them have names. Some are obvious, such as Sick-in-bed kisses, and Good morning kisses, while others have multiple names, like Brother and sister kisses, otherwise known as Ew yuck! kisses. With just the right amount of humor, Laura Rader’s illustrations add warmth and affection to the already fun text. Although the adults might enjoy the sentiment, the kids will no doubt enjoy the added giggles in Rader’s drawings, such as the comic book tucked behind the pillow in the Turning-out-the-light kisses. For the young and not-so-young alike who might be leery of a book full of smooches, this well-suited author/illustrator team knows that kisses come in various forms, such as Tummy kisses and Underwater kisses. This lip-smacking picture book is sealed with kisses from around the world, a kisu (Japanese), a busu (Swahili), and a pog (Gaelic). For those looking to avoid a trip to the dentist, this book and a kiss in any language would make a very sweet Valentine’s Day present.

Katie McAllaster Weaver is a children’s writer and mother in Benicia, California.

Valentine's Day is fast approaching, and what better gift for kissers of all ages than A Book of Kisses? There are all kinds of kisses in the world, begins the book, as author Dave Ross takes a lighthearted, yet affectionate look at a variety of…
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

If you’ve read one Larry Bond novel (The Enemy Within, Red Phoenix, etc.), you’ve probably read them all. Of course, if you’ve read them all, then you’re like me, and you’ve continued to enjoy his escapist, globe-trotting thrillers and tales of semi-plausible headlong plunges toward the end of the world as we know it. Do the good guys win? I’ll give you one good guess. Are the bad guys really, really bad . . . I mean bad on a world-shaking, civilization-destroying level? Sure are. Is the technology pretty darned cool and yet at the same time frighteningly real? Yes again, and that’s the heart of Bond’s success, especially in his latest, Day of Wrath. Bond, who was an uncredited partner and consultant on Tom Clancy’s early books, knows his stuff, and his expertise shows in descriptions of everything from handguns to nuclear missiles.

The heroes of 1997’s Enemy Within, Colonel Peter Thorn and FBI Special Agent Helen Gray, return in Day of Wrath to battle yet another Middle Eastern terrorist overlord bent on destroying the decadent country of America. (One quibble: It seems sort of easy and predictable to make the villain an Arab . . . again. Surely there are bad guys elsewhere. In Bond’s favor, though: The top henchmen of key villain Prince Ibrahim are ex-East German secret policeman. It’s a new world.) The action moves from the forests of Russia to the streets of Berlin to Washington, D.

C.’s Virginia suburbs, with stops for gunplay at many places along the way. The reason for all the chasing is that Thorn and Gray are the only people who know the secret of Ibrahim’s “Operation,” a secret I won’t reveal here, but suffice to say the title of the book is appropriate. The duo is forced to take extreme measures to safeguard themselves and the secret in a typically nail-biting race to the “whew-that-was-close” climax. Along the way, the romance between Thorn and Gray that budded in the previous Bond book blooms brightly. Their between-the-gunshots romantic by-play seems a little forced sometimes, but gives a more human flavor to the out-there proceedings.

However out-there the plot gets, the kernel of truth and dangerous possibility that lies at its heart forces the reader to consider the “what-if factor.” I hope that if there’s a real Prince Ibrahim out there, we have more than just two people to stop him, but for now, the resourceful Thorn and the sturdy Gray will do nicely.

Reviewed by James Buckley, Jr.

If you've read one Larry Bond novel (The Enemy Within, Red Phoenix, etc.), you've probably read them all. Of course, if you've read them all, then you're like me, and you've continued to enjoy his escapist, globe-trotting thrillers and tales of semi-plausible headlong plunges toward…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Spider Sparrow (ages 7Ð10) is yet another winner from Dick King-Smith, author of Babe: The Gallant Pig and a slew of others. But here, instead of animals as central characters, the hero is an orphaned infant boy left among the baby lambs on an estate farm in England. The child is adopted by the shepherd and his wife, Tom and Kathie Sparrow, a poor childless couple who call their new son Spider because of the strange way he learns to crawl using his hands and legs.

But that’s not all that’s unusual about the foundling. Before long his parents and others around him realize that Spider is slow-witted, and the schoolmaster pronounces him unfit for teaching. Nonetheless, the boy has his own talents he can talk to animals, perfectly imitating their cries, drawing close even the wildest of the wild. Foxes eat out of his hand, as do otters and rabbits, and Spider even manages to tame a wild group of bucking broncos in true horse-whisperer style. Mrs. Yorke, the wife of the estate’s landowner, proudly proclaims him an idiot savant.

Despite his limited vocabulary and intelligence, despite his frail health, Spider takes over several important jobs at Outoverdown Farm. With gusto he becomes a crowstarver, or human scarecrow, for instance. In his own little world, surrounded by a host of wild animals, dogs, parents, and people who care for him, he is the happiest of souls.

Here is an old-fashioned tale that starts between the two world wars and ends in the summer of 1942, taking Spider to early adulthood. Against the peaceable backdrop of the farm lurks a variety of threats: the horrors of World War II, gently alluded to; the taunts of those unkind to Spider; and, finally, the boy’s delicate constitution. All cannot be happy in Spider’s little kingdom forever, of course, as King-Smith leads us closer and closer to the tragedy that’s bound to come.

King-Smith’s novel is full of little ups and downs. In addition to the magic of Spider’s relations with wild animals, there’s a real fairytale-like quality to this story of an orphan adopted by two fiercely loving, kind-hearted souls. It’s also a tale full of wisdom, a lesson about the important things in life and what makes a person truly happy. Spider is one of those simple souls who has a lot to teach the world. Alice Cary writes from her home in Groton, Massachusetts.

Spider Sparrow (ages 7Ð10) is yet another winner from Dick King-Smith, author of Babe: The Gallant Pig and a slew of others. But here, instead of animals as central characters, the hero is an orphaned infant boy left among the baby lambs on an estate…
FictionHistorical Fiction

Dorothy Dunnett’s 7th Niccolo novel is first-rate

Review by bookpagedev

Dorothy Dunnett does not rest on her laurels. With Caprice and Rondo, volume seven in her House of Niccolo series, she adds still more mystery and suspense to the labyrinthine plots within plots within counterplots that have marked the career of her 15th-century merchant/adventurer protagonist, Nicholas de Fleury. But first-time readers of Dunnett be forewarned: Although the Niccolo series is ably introduced and partially explicated by Judith Wilt, Caprice and Rondo (Wilt’s introduction notwithstanding) will be heavy going for someone who has not read the earlier novels in the series.

At the end of volume six, To Lie with Lions, Dunnett’s "master dissembler" now in Scotland has finally brought to fruition his most complex project: to wreck financially the country whose gentry terrified and rejected Nicholas’s mother and Nicholas himself (see volume one, Niccolo Rising). It is a vengeance that has turned even his closest companions against him, a dire success that seems to ruin him as well as his adversaries. And, as we learn in this next Niccolo volume, it is not just Nicholas at risk. Everyone around him from long-time friends and associates like Julius of Bologna to Nicholas’s estranged wife Gelis and their son Jodi faces potential disaster.

Now, as Dunnett’s readers have come to expect, the real mysteries and revelations begin, acted out on a playing field that stretches from Scotland to Poland, to Muscovy and beyond. There is, for example, the looming shadow of David de Salmeton (see volume three, Race of Scorpions), the discredited Vatachino agent who is back in favor again this time in Scotland. What are his intentions toward Nicholas and Nicholas’s family?

There is Countess Anna von Hanseyck, the loving and beautiful new wife of Julius. But is she who she says she is? The question endures through understandings and misunderstandings, treachery and trust, and finally achieves an answer, of sorts, only after Nicholas learns more about his own identity. And, of course, there is always the riddle of Nicholas, who began as Claes vander Poele, and is now Nicholas de Fleury, former governor of the Banco di Niccolo, whose soul is endangered because of the schemes his busy brain cannot resist.

One of the charms of Dunnett’s historical novels is the way Dunnett intermingles her own players with characters "recorded in history." Charles, Duke of Bergundy, Anselm Adorne, Conservator of Scots Privileges in Bruges, and Danzig privateer, Pauel Benecke share a fascinating partnership with Dunnett’s own creations: Syrus de Astariis, mercenary commander, Michael Crackbene, shipmaster, Thibault, vicomte de Fleury.

Although several of my favorite players have died before the adventures chronicled in Caprice and Rondo, others have taken their places; and some of the familiar stalwarts seem to have grown in stature.

But the surest sign that the denouement is approaching is the reappearance, in this novel, of Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli, the Greek whose broken wooden leg was, perhaps, the catalyst that created the House of Niccolo. At a reading given in fall 1997 in Kansas City, Dunnett let drop a tantalizing comment: "In the eighth [and last] volume of the House of Niccolo, I plan to link Nicholas with my Lymond Series." For those readers who have read and re-read, multiple times, the volumes in both series, it makes for almost unbearable suspense to find out how the two will meet.

Dorothy Dunnett does not rest on her laurels. With Caprice and Rondo, volume seven in her House of Niccolo series, she adds still more mystery and suspense to the labyrinthine plots within plots within counterplots that have marked the career of her 15th-century merchant/adventurer protagonist,…

HistoryBlack History

Review

Review by bookpagedev

The powerful message of King’s “Letter” Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is generally regarded as the preeminent piece of writing from the civil rights movement. Forceful, scholarly, persuasive, the letter rallied supporters behind King’s cause and staked his claim to a moral high ground above those who urged a more cautious solution to racial discrimination. Now, for the first time comes a comprehensive examination of King’s famous letter in Blessed Are the Peacemakers. Author and historian S. Jonathan Bass presents a well-researched account of how the letter was created and examines in compelling fashion how it affected the lives of those it touched.

Defying a court injunction against marching, King and his followers were arrested in April 1963 by Bull Connor’s Birmingham police force and confined to the city jail. There, in a dark and isolated cell, King began scribbling in the margins of a newspaper his eloquent response to eight white ministers who had criticized his demonstrations and called for a more gradual approach toward solving the South’s racial dilemma. When King’s letter was made public, many of the ministers to whom it was addressed endured personal agony. Vilified in the national media, they received hate mail and criticism from both sides civil rights advocates in the North, as well as segregationists in their own congregations. In this balanced portrayal, based on personal interviews with many of the participants, Bass describes how the turmoil took its toll two of the pastors left their churches (and the city of Birmingham), soon after, while others remained bitter and puzzled by their inclusion in this troubling piece of the nation’s history. Bass’ book is a worthy addition to the history of the civil rights movement and a vivid reminder of the passions and conflicts it aroused.

The powerful message of King's "Letter" Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is generally regarded as the preeminent piece of writing from the civil rights movement. Forceful, scholarly, persuasive, the letter rallied supporters behind King's cause and staked his claim to a moral…
FictionPoetry

Review

Review by bookpagedev

How do I love thee? Of all the writing that I have pursued in my lifetime, there has been nothing more challenging and rewarding than my attempts to capture in words my love for my wife. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many poetic skills I employ, the results always seem to fall short of what I really want to say. I began years ago letting my heart speak to her in poems. They became my gifts to her on Valentine’s Days, birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions. At first she kept my little poems tucked away, taking them out from time to time to read aloud and enjoy all over again. Then one day she told me she felt selfish keeping them all to herself. She picked out a few of her favorites and sent them off to see if others cared. They did. Some of the poems began appearing in magazines and, now, in this book of Love Poems for you.

Charles Ghigna has written a number of highly successful poetry books for children, including Animal Trunk: Silly Poems to Read Aloud (Abrams). He lives in Alabama with his wife and their son.

How do I love thee? Of all the writing that I have pursued in my lifetime, there has been nothing more challenging and rewarding than my attempts to capture in words my love for my wife. No matter how hard I try, no matter how…

History

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Issac Eisler’s timely book Revenge of the Pequots takes readers deep into the heart of the questions surrounding a high-stakes topic: gaming on American Indian reservations. His book is a fascinating account of the pitfalls and promises encountered by one tiny tribe, the Pequots of Connecticut, as they struggled to build the Foxwoods Resort and Casino, the most lucrative gaming facility in America.

Eisler begins his narrative with a generous, readable account of the Pequot’s early history. A proud, fierce Eastern tribe, they were broken and relocated on uninhabitable land by English settlers. By the 1970s, only 214 acres remained of their original 2000-acre land grant, and the few surviving members of the tribe lived in poverty. Tribal leader Richard “Skip” Hayward, a central figure in the rebirth of the Pequots, hoped to revive the tribe, but his dreams were small: initially, he wanted to save the reservation by opening a Mr. Pizza. Gambling, he believed, could not exist without mob involvement. But when a newly purchased Mr. Pizza failed to draw customers and a greenhouse business was quickly buried in red ink, Hayward knew it was time to try something new. Any attempt at opening a gaming parlor in sleepy, rural Connecticut would, of course, be rife with controversy. Would high-stakes bingo dry up money raised in church and charity games? Would an increased traffic flow turn the idyllic countryside into a continuous traffic jam? These snares and more awaited the Pequots as they embarked upon their chancy venture an undertaking that brought them head-to-head with powerful opponents like Donald Trump and Steve Wynn. Author Kim Eisler skillfully recounts the work of Hayward and others as, through their efforts, the Pequots became the richest tribe of Native Americans in history. Throughout the narrative, Eisler, a former staff writer for the American Lawyer, ably untangles the most arcane and complicated court cases. Grounded in historical detail, Revenge of the Pequots is compelling reading a dramatic book that turns a controversial topic into a fascinating narrative.

Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr. is a writer in Appomattox, Virginia.

Issac Eisler's timely book Revenge of the Pequots takes readers deep into the heart of the questions surrounding a high-stakes topic: gaming on American Indian reservations. His book is a fascinating account of the pitfalls and promises encountered by one tiny tribe, the Pequots of…
Technology

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Back in America, economic tidings have been a lot brighter. For one thing, a whole previously unknown venue for commerce seems about to blossom on the Internet. How did things change so quickly on a medium that a few short years ago seemed to have no commercial potential? You’ll find some answers in the richly entertaining Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet, a first-person account of an unwitting entrepreneurial journey through the first phase of the Internet’s commercialization.

Journalist Michael Wolff was an early believer in the Internet and started a company. It was the mid-1990s and the American financial machine was getting awfully excited about the Internet. (It still is.) That doesn’t mean that every entrepreneurial dream is a happy one, especially in an Internet world where the rules are being made up as the companies exponentially grow. Profits don’t exist and the almighty “burn rate” (the money a company spends each month that exceeds revenues) forms an ever-present cloud ready to rain on the entrepreneur’s parade.

Wolff is a strong, self-deprecating, and often humorous writer. He relates his own experiences with financial backers, venture capitalists, investment bankers, and some well-known Internet names. This is interspersed with some hyperhistory of the “net,” circa 1994 through 1997. The book reads like a novel (a good thing), but in that sense the conclusion of Wolff’s story is a bit of an anti-climax (I won’t reveal details). Still, you won’t often find a first-person account of starting a business in the fast lane that so provocatively reveals the voraciousness, duplicity, and plain old hardball tactics that are the province of the financial types who keep capitalism humming. When the sky is the limit and a company’s financial reserves will only last a matter of weeks, it makes for some hectic action.

Reviewed by Neal Lipschutz.

Back in America, economic tidings have been a lot brighter. For one thing, a whole previously unknown venue for commerce seems about to blossom on the Internet. How did things change so quickly on a medium that a few short years ago seemed to have…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

n his latest thriller, Deep Sleep, Charles Wilson returns to one of his favorite themes: murder and mayhem triggered by a foreign invasion of the mind. The author of several best-selling scientific thrillers, Wilson has a knack for crafting riveting plot lines around kernels of scientific fact. In Deep Sleep, he focuses on treatment for sleep disorders, and ventures into a mysterious world of mind games played with hypnosis, Cajun voodoo and hallucinatory drugs. Wilson has chosen the South Louisiana bayou country as the setting for this absorbing tale of local culture with a 21st century face.

The action begins when a local deputy sheriff discovers the body of a young girl raped and beaten on the grounds of the South Louisiana Sleep Disorder Institute. The macabre scene reads like something by Edgar Allan Poe an antebellum mansion shrouded in mist rising from surrounding crocodile-infested mangrove swamps and partially obscured by hanging moss. When the victim is identified as a patient, Senior Deputy Mark French locks down the institute and takes a closer look at its fantasy fulfillment program, one that recreates wealthy patients’ dreams and fantasies with enough realism that they are recalled as true experiences by those undergoing the treatment.

French soon establishes that another patient is missing and may have stolen a car. Other suspects include a grotesquely deformed boy and his hardscrabble parents eking out a primitive living on the edge of the swamp, the institute’s sinister director and several members of her staff with violent criminal records. While tracking the missing patient through the steamy swamp, the deputies come across two more sadistically murdered victims whose deaths suggest that a second psychopath may be on the loose. The pace accelerates as French closes in on at least one of the killers. The stormy night scene of the hunters racing through a lightning-laced swamp with flashlights reinforced by a helicopter’s searchlight equals Hollywood’s best. Wilson is even able to weave a thin but appealing romantic thread into the violent tapestry that makes Deep Sleep a memorable reading experience.

John Messer writes from Ludington, Michigan.

n his latest thriller, Deep Sleep, Charles Wilson returns to one of his favorite themes: murder and mayhem triggered by a foreign invasion of the mind. The author of several best-selling scientific thrillers, Wilson has a knack for crafting riveting plot lines around kernels of…

Review

Review by bookpagedev

You won’t find much about mezzanine financing or business dinners in hip "Eurotrash" restaurants, but if you want a practical guide to self-employment, seriously consider If You’re Clueless about Starting Your Own Business and Want to Know More. This is a good first book to read about going out on your own, even if it’s not the last one you’ll need. This straightforward workbook by Seth Godin is part of the Clueless series of primers on stocks, insurance, and other topics. If You’re Clueless about Getting a Great Job and Want to Know More, released this past April, is the most recent addition to the series.

Easy-to-read chapters help you assess the skills and personality traits you’ll bring to your business venture. Other chapters discuss how to obtain financing and how to choose a legal form for your business, among other basic needs. Chapters are consistently broken up by useful sidebars that often tell you where to find further information. Short "Try It His Way" and "Try It Her Way" anecdotes provide real-life examples relevant to the topic at hand.

Becoming your own boss is an increasingly traveled road to the American dream. But the failure rate is high, and it can be all consuming. Before you embark, certainly get the practical knowledge you’ll need. Reviewed by Neal Lipschutz.

You won't find much about mezzanine financing or business dinners in hip "Eurotrash" restaurants, but if you want a practical guide to self-employment, seriously consider If You're Clueless about Starting Your Own Business and Want to Know More. This is a good first book to…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

t voyeurism if the voyeur, the watcher, has permission to watch? Television shows like Survivor reel in huge audiences by giving viewers the sense that they have a secret window to the participant’s personal, private moments. But if someone knows they are being watched, in fact, invites the viewing, perhaps the table turns, the exhibitionist holds the cards, and the mesmerized voyeur becomes victim to the exhibitionist. David Ellis uses this seductive cat and mouse game to the hilt in his tautly crafted, provocative first novel, Line of Vision.

The protagonist, Marty Kalish, is a successful investment banker who has been to law school. He knows enough about law, lawyers and police matters to make him either smart enough to get away with murder or too smart for his own good. We’re not sure which. This is because the story is told in first person and while Kalish is devilishly fascinating, he may not be the most reliable source for helping us determine his guilt or innocence. For one thing, he lies.

For another, he seems to have an inability to accept responsibility and achieve fulfilling relationships, even with close family members. (In a sense, he became an unwitting “voyeur” as a child, and a witness to a haunting secret he harbors deep inside.) And finally, he’s an outright Peeping Tom lurking outside Rachel Reindhard’s house in the cold and dark, waiting to see her in the window. “A grown man sneaking outside a married woman’s house. Pathetic. Depraved. Perverted. All of the above?” he asks himself and we are not sure of the answer, having become voyeurs ourselves watching him watch her! Deciding whether Kalish is a hero or a hedonist is part of the intrigue of this novel, and Ellis does a remarkable job of keeping us in suspense on all fronts until the final, riveting pages.

Line of Vision is a legal thriller, complete with lawyer wrangling, questions of evidence and a hair-raising courtroom drama, but it is also a character study in which the mystery of Kalish the man is as spellbinding as the mystery surrounding the murder. An action-packed page-turner, this book will not only make you wonder “who is watching whom?” but force you to question the morality of looking just because there is something titillating to see. Is it sometimes wise, we must ask, to limit our own “line of vision”? Linda Stankard writes from Cookeville, Tennessee.

t voyeurism if the voyeur, the watcher, has permission to watch? Television shows like Survivor reel in huge audiences by giving viewers the sense that they have a secret window to the participant's personal, private moments. But if someone knows they are being watched, in…
FictionWomen's Fiction

Snapshot of a family

Review by bookpagedev

Perhaps it’s best to tell the reader right off the bat that the feisty Viola Price, matriarch of Terry McMillan’s latest novel A Day Late and a Dollar Short, dies halfway through the book. McMillan etches the character so vividly that when she passes away, the reader grieves, and indeed the loss of Viola’s robust, irritated, comical voice leaves an empty spot in the narrative. In terms of the book’s overall appeal, however, it hardly matters.

One of McMillan’s greatest strengths is her spot-on characterization of people and situations you recognize, especially if you’re an African-American woman. Yes, that’s my mother, one mutters, shaking one’s head ruefully. Or that’s my Aunt So and So, or Cousin Ditz, or my best friend or that numbskull I used to date. Once in a while one will be even tempted to admit, yes, that’s me, but don’t tell anybody.

McMillan’s latest novel opens with Viola in the hospital for one of her asthma attacks, contemplating her wayward children. They are the perfectionist Paris, a successful caterer still chafing under the burden of being the oldest child; the prickly Charlotte, who still believes, a la Tommy Smothers, that her mother liked Paris best; Lewis, the loser with the genius level IQ who can’t seem to stay out of trouble even if he tries; and Janelle, the dingbat whose lifelong flightiness is stopped only by an outrageous crime committed against her adolescent daughter. There’s also Viola’s estranged husband, Cecil, jheri-curled and polyester clad, who has taken up with a young welfare mom. As with most of McMillan’s books, the narrative voice is straightforward, with an acerbic humor like a bite into a not quite ripe persimmon. We can tell the players apart immediately; eventually we can recognize children and even fractious spouses and ex-spouses. In McMillan’s capable hands, even peripheral folks like Viola’s kindly next-door neighbor and her strange, waspish sisters are clearly drawn.

In the McMillan tradition the adult men, Lewis, Cecil and the sisters’ husbands and ex-husbands, are not what they ought to be. This isn’t man-bashing on McMillan’s part, but her conveyance of the truth that a lot of men are dogs, or dogs in training, and her ongoing examination of the mystery of why smart women hook up with them. Perhaps another part of McMillan’s popularity stems from the mistaken belief by many of her readers that, with their own nutty families and eye-popping messes, they, too, could have written Waiting to Exhale, or Stella or Mama if they only had the time!

All in all, A Day Late and a Dollar Short is more a snapshot of a critical moment in the ongoing travails of a particular family than a deep, analytical opus. Even momentous events like multiple pregnancies are kept subordinate to the main action of bickering kinfolk dealing with the death of their mother. In the end we regain something of Viola’s voice when the Prices gather after her funeral to read the letters she sent to each of them, and we realize we miss this stubborn, opinionated, funny lady. Not as much as her children, who come late to the realization that they did love one another after all.

Arlene McKanic writes from Jamaica, New York.

Perhaps it's best to tell the reader right off the bat that the feisty Viola Price, matriarch of Terry McMillan's latest novel A Day Late and a Dollar Short, dies halfway through the book. McMillan etches the character so vividly that when she passes away,…

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