From Publishers Weekly
Against the ominous background of radioactive fallout from the disaster in Chernobyl, Gee ( Light Years ) interweaves the stories of writer and anti-nuclear activist Paula Timms, her 85-year-old pacifist aunt Grace, and a split-personality private eye named Bruno Janes, who may or may not be working for the government investigating possible ties between Paula, Grace and Eastern bloc nations. Much in the novel is ambiguous: Is Paula's illness due to radiation sickness or pregnancy? Is Bruno evil, a mindless drone or simply inept? What was the nature of Grace's youthful relationship with a painter named Ralph? Heavy with portent--in a fierce storm, Grace helps deliver the baby of a young woman named Faith; Bruno's last name is pronounced Janus--and laden with metaphors of dirt, filth and waste, the plot is not saved by a facile, speedy resolution, all too hopeful, given all the disasters leading up to it. The charac ters are deftly delineated and the issues broached are certainly important, but the novel as a whole neither hangs together nor convinces.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Eighty-five-year-old Grace Stirling travels to the seaside town of Seabourne in pursuit of the peace she needs to examine her life and to escape the disquieting phone calls she's recently been receiving. Paula, her niece, lives near the railway line that carries nuclear waste through the center of London; she monitors the trains and worries about the future of the dirty post-atomic England in which she lives. Paula and Grace are kept under surveillance by a neurotic private detective, Bruno Janes, who mistakenly thinks they are some sort of national risk. Janes's anger eventually explodes into an act of violence at the novel's thriller-like conclusion. Well written but, on the whole, too fragmented to sustain interest for long. From the author of The Burning Book ( LJ 9/15/84).
- Laurence Hull, Cannon Memorial Lib., Concord, Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
