More catechism than novel—with wooden characters, minimal plot, and dialogue so absurd (“a mystery school . . . is a place...
More New Age yarnspinning from pop guru Chopra (Soulmate, 2001, etc.), this time about a young Boston writer’s quest for spiritual fulfillment.
Plenty of people have trouble settling down in their 20s. Take Jess Conover. At 28, Jeff is still an aspiring writer (emphasis on “aspiring”) who ekes out a living as the rewrite man at a weekly paper in Boston. Jeff’s girlfriend Renee recently left him, but they’re still in touch and may get back together. Meanwhile, Jeff’s older sister Linny, married and with children, is eager for Jeff to find himself and raise a family. But Jeff just can’t make the commitment. All in all, Jeff is a normal American twentysomething (i.e., a superannuated adolescent). Then one day he finds an intriguing classified ad in the Boston Globe: “Love has found you. Tell no one, just come.” The ad also lists a New Hampshire phone number and (most mysterious of all) the initials “JC” (as in Jeff Conover). Jeff calls and is told to drive to New Hampshire immediately. There’s a blizzard raging outside and his ancient Camry has bald tires and a weak transmission, but he hits the road without a second thought and drives straight to the address he was given. There, he meets Dolly, an older lady who is known as a “wise woman,” and Elena, who is about Jeff’s age. Dolly and Elena are part of a secret society called the Daughters of Joy, and their mission is to initiate Jeff into “the subtle world” of spiritual bliss. This entails out-of-body experiences, hallucinations and dreams, and a lot of talk about love and mystery. Eventually, Jeff and Elena start a mystery school in Boston to carry on the work of enlightening the spiritually precocious. And Jeff finally finds out what the point of his life is.
More catechism than novel—with wooden characters, minimal plot, and dialogue so absurd (“a mystery school . . . is a place where you learn that love is a mystery”) that even Kahlil Gibran would break out laughing.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2002
ISBN: 0-399-14948-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
