The fourth book in Wilson's Lampitt Papers, an on-going chronicle of 20th-century England and one man's effort to understand a representative life—a life that has become shrouded in intrigue and innuendo. James Petworth Lampitt more or less defined the Edwardian Age as a man of letters, from a distinguished family, who himself was friends with most of the important cultural figures of the time. Julian Ramsay, a successful radio actor, grew up in the shadow of the Lampitts. Orphaned in the war, Julian lived with his uncle Roy, a provincial vicar absolutely obsessed with the Lampitts and their lore. In previous volumes, Julian survives the '40s and '50s as a young man of great promise, one of whose goals is a biography of James ``Jimbo'' Lampitt. Unfortunately, he's beaten to the punch by the genial and oily Raphael Hunter, who claims to have discovered all sorts of sordid secrets about Jimbo. Now, Julian comes closer to the truth about the supposedly telltale Lampitt Papers, at the time in possession of Virgil D. Everett, an American pharmaceuticals tycoon, convinced by Hunter that the papers reveal that Lampitt had sexual peccadilloes much like Everett's. But before Everett takes a long look at his collection, he mysteriously plummets from a Manhattan skyscraper, a death similar to Jimbo's untimely demise. To complicate Julian's researches, he falls in love with his girlfriend's sister, a Catholic beauty married to the hapless Fergus Nolan, a scientist engaged by the Vatican to advise on the birth-control controversy. Julian's unresolved feelings for his dead parents result in a nervous breakdown, but not before venting lots of anti-RC sentiment, much of which Wilson seems to endorse. Nevertheless, Wilson's shrewd take on the late 1960s makes a nice companion to David Lodge's fiction on the Pill, The British Museum is Falling Down. A must for fans of Wilson's Lampitt books, but not the place to begin—much here won't make sense to those unfamiliar with Wilson's grand narrative.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-03875-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
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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