Word: glynne
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...perceptive and occasionally brilliant. Geraldine Page is wonderful as Mother Watts, the doting, doddering old protagonist, a hymn-singing, sentimental Jewish mother who happens to be a Texas Christian. She lives in a cramped Houston apartment with her milquetoast son Ludie (John Heard) and shrill daughter-in-law (Carlin Glynn), leading a weary existence that only aggravates her deteriorating heart condition...
...OTHER CHARACTERS fall just a little short. As the daughter-in-law, Glynn is trapped in a one-dimensional role, handicapped by the shallowness of the script. We are constantly alerted to the fact that she is a heartless, tacky bitch, but the character is so overwrought that, despite some hints of depth, we never see enough complexity really to identify with her. Ditto for Thelma (Rebecca De Mornay), a young woman whom Page befriends in a bus station on the way to Bountiful. De Mornay's character is so unflinchingly sweet that when she suddenly and inexplicably disappears from...
...Glynn is no imitator. He aggressively establishes his own voice and rhythms: "A musty, greasy fog hung in the air, and the lights of the evening looked blunted and strangely hairy . . . He watched people through the scope of the rifle. He traced the progress of heavy women with rolled-down stockings and battered shoes that barely contained the fat of their feet. He followed small children as they hopped over stoops and banged on garbage cans. He zeroed in on the eyeballs of men coming home from work. He knew someone across the street had seen him on the roof...
...Glynn's technique is freewheeling and effective. As all successful developers of surreal estate know, the best investment is in facts, details, odds and ends of the real world. There is little doubt that most of the + brutal and absurd acts that the author embellishes can be documented in newspapers and police blotters. If you think it is impossible to steal a roof, check it out. Is Glynn exaggerating when he writes headlines like LANDLORD TOSSES OUT EPILEPTIC AND DEAF-MUTE . . . SHE SHAKES, HE CAN'T HEAR, THEY GET BOOT? Only slightly...
...most hapless figure in the book is a muscle-bound liberal who wants to save the property. He fails. Too many tenants prefer their own chaos to someone else's order, in this case the Gorilla Management Co.'s. Glynn concludes with an inevitable apocalypse, and none too soon. By the time the Nordic Ice Queen and the Madonna of Heat wrestle for the soul of the building, the author's inspired riffs on urban rot have been overworked as allegory. But not before a strong and exuberant talent has shown his stuff...