by Bill Hunt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2013
A well-intentioned but inconsistent smorgasbord of Southern vignettes.
Hunt (A Full-Grown Man, 2009) offers a playful collection of short stories set in the American South and featuring plenty of local color and family drama.
These stories, billed as “somewhat peculiar,” highlight 10 different voices, united mainly by their Southern drawl. The opening story, about an aging mixed-race hermit and her riches, as told to a rookie Latino reporter, sits alongside a doctor’s account of an eerily intimate exchange with his new patient; the story of a family squatting and stealing to get by; and the tale of an uncultured Alabama father begrudgingly accompanying his wife and daughter on a trip to Europe. In these diverse scenarios, Hunt repeatedly returns to the theme of family conflict. Although he doesn’t shy away from confronting race and class violence, he also shows how trauma can come from those closest to us. These stories range in tone from unsettling to nearly devastating, but they occasionally offer a glimmer of hope. With such ambitious scope, however, they sometimes fall short of their attempted depth, with subtleties often obscured by awkward prose and half-formed ideas. In “Soul Mates,” for example, a recently dead narrator thinks, “The how, when, or why were totally disregarded in the format of information that clicked through my mind.” This experimental attempt to narrate disorientation unfortunately falls flat, as it lacks a precise voice or vision. However, there are successes, such as the charming romance “Willie” and the emotional “Special Arrangements at Mickey Spitzer’s,” a black child’s account of rural poverty. Readers may find some of the forced, stereotypical speech patterns uncomfortable at times (“You waitin’ for Miz Willie, Mista White Man?”). However, the author’s critique of social hierarchy is ultimately the book’s engine, and although the collection may be a bit spotty, his picture of a complex society fully emerges by the end.
A well-intentioned but inconsistent smorgasbord of Southern vignettes.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-1490423906
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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