A gripping South American adventure set in a bygone time and place.
Hernandez (Sangama, 2014) tells the story of an uncontacted Amazonian tribe taking a white woman captive.
In this new translation, Enstam brings the late Peruvian author, known for his writing about the Amazon basin, to English-language readers. This book, first published in Spanish in 1954, is a version of an allegedly true story of the late 1920s. Mariana, the young wife of hunter Alfredo, accompanies him into the jungle in search of game. A band of warriors from a native tribe approach them and appear friendly at first—but then, when Alfredo’s guard is down, they use his shotgun to murder him and kidnap Mariana. If this attack seems treacherous to readers, the author explains that it’s simply the way of the jungle: “The mind of the savages does not conceive the attack from the front, above all in their wars. They mock the white man who marches through the jungle, announcing his presence to the four winds.” They carry Mariana away and make her the wife of one of the warriors; as a result, she’s treated to a crash sociology course in the ways of the Amazon. Even as she becomes immersed in her captors’ culture, though, the words of the dying Alfredo are never far from her mind: “Don’t be afraid; someday you will be able to escape.” The novel’s premise may be problematic to those with modern post-colonial sensibilities. The language is certainly marked by the common worldview of the time of its original composition; it consistently refers to the Amazonian tribesman as savages, for example. That said, if readers can get beyond the author’s Western bias, there’s much to enjoy in this tale. Hernandez is a wonderful, hypnotic writer of action and fear, and his rendering of the jungle, which pulses with life at every level, is a treat to inhabit. Enstam’s translation is also wonderfully readable; indeed, this is a book to get lost in.
A gripping South American adventure set in a bygone time and place.Pub Date: March 31, 2015
ISBN: 978-0978691417
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Quaestor Press, Limited
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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