Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 19, 1993 TAG: 9309150352
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Anytime a book by Tracy Kidder is published, a signal to go to the bookstore is flashed to any reader who admires his distinctive narrative style.
Kidder is one of few contemporary authors able to take a simple, mundane subject and illuminate it in such a way as to make it completely absorbing. In "Old Friends," he spends a year in a nursing home observing how modern society has influenced the one sure expectation of life - growing old. He enters the life of two men forced to live together in Linda Manor, a nursing home in western Massachusetts.
The narrative begins when Lou Freed moves in with Joe Torchio following the death of Freed's wife. Having lived in Linda Manor with his wife, Freed was forced to take semi-private accommodations for financial reasons. The slow acceptance of each other, the slow acceptance of progressive physical limitations, the slow acceptance that they are not treated with the respect they have come to expect all paint a picture of how growing old in this Pepsi Generation society is both a humbling and ennobling experience.
Thank you, Tracy Kidder.
-LARRY SHIELD
Country Roads; Albemarle County, Virginia. Self-guided Driving Tours.
By Susan DeAlba. Rockbridge Publishing. $14.95.
DeAlba has compiled 14 motor trips of varying lengths in and around Charlottesville that should be of great interest to the history buff, the newcomer and the longtime resident alike.
I suspect that the folklore of the countryside along the tour routes will be the main point of interest for most readers. Some will call it history and others will call it legend but the information is interesting under either category. The background for Three Chopt Road caught my eye. In the 1740s, it started as Three Notched Road but has had various spellings of Three Notch'd and Three Chopt, as in a trail notched to follow.
On Tour 3: Stony Point Road a house named Piedmont Manor is described as looking like it belonged in "Gone With the Wind" but was actually the setting for a movie called "Virginia" with Fred MacMurray and Madeleine Carrol. It was also used for the Virginia scenes in "Giant." On Tour 8: Rockfish Gap Turnpike, a driver will see Mirador, the childhood home of Nancy Astor, the first woman member of the British Parliament who was elected for the seat for Plymount which had been held by her husband, Waldorf Lord Astor.
"Country Roads" is fun to read. It would assist the ones who are actually driving the tours to have estimated mileages included in the otherwise excellent maps. The scale legend is not enough and the mileage in the text is not handy. Nonetheless, this attractively done book should be a hit with those lucky enough to get one as a gift or smart enough to buy their own copy.
PEGGY C. DAVIS
Last Man Out. By Donald Honig. Dutton. $19.
Following his excellent "The Plot to Kill Jackie Robinson," Honig has turned out another baseball mystery set in the late 1940s. Again, Honig features sportswriter (and World War II combat veteran) Joe Tinker and the club he covers, the Brooklyn Dodgers.
But "Last Man Out," unlike "The Plot to Kill," is a more conventional whodunit, replete with dead bodies, red herrings and misplaced suspicions. The main Dodger character is rookie Harvey Tippen, accused of murder. Unlike Robinson, Tippen is purely fictional.
Honig again offers a glimpse into the New York City of the era. In "Last Man Out," this includes the cafe society of the decadent wealthy who provide the murder victims. But the new novel lacks the pure suspense of its predecessor, and Honig's use of homosexuality as a subtheme is less convincing than the societal racism he portrayed in "The Plot to Kill."
GEOFF SEAMANS
Time and Change.
By Gwen Davenport. Donald I. Fine. $22.95.
As dated as the crinolines worn at the time, this "Victorian family saga" made me yawn. Just before falling asleep, I realized that the same tale has been written scores, nay, hundreds of times, almost always with more zest. By standing up to read, I finally did follow the misfortunes of the Wrox family to their predictable conclusion.
If you think you have problems, just consider those of the Wroxes.
Neglected by its owners, the family estate seems doomed to fall into the clutches of its unscrupulous overseer. Twins born in 1838 are separated at birth; later one is stolen by gypsies, who eventually sell her into whoredom. Another child, the wild one, bears an illegitimate child. The paterfamilius dies mysteriously. Mother takes to her bed, as any sensible person would.
Ultimately a wayward son returns to manage the property and one daughter marries a sensible merchant. Miracle of miracles, prosperity arrives, wrongs are righted, the twins are reunited, old scores are settled, and almost everyone lives happily ever after.
Pedestrian and plodding, "Time and Change" might possibly interest someone alone on an island or stuck in an elevator, but even that seems doubtful.
-LYNN ECKMAN
Larry Shield trains dogs and horses in Franklin County.\ Peggy C. Davis reviews books regularly for this page.\ Geoff Seamans writes editorials for this newspaper.\ Lynn Eckman teaches at Roanoke College.
by CNB