Think Huckleberry Finn in hormonal overdrive, or Penrod with a perpetual erection. They won’t be assigning this one in...
You really can hear the hushed resonant voice of the genial host of NPR’s Prairie Home Companion reciting this latest episodic chronicle of growing up in rural Minnesota.
Keillor’s first novel in four years (following Wobegon Boy, 1997) is narrated by (obvious authorial surrogate) 14-year-old Gary, the timid yet intellectually adventurous son of a placid family who belong to the evangelical Christian Sanctified Brethren. Sanctified or not, Gary fantasizes energetically and guiltily about sex (hiding his borrowed copy of High School Orgies from the disapproving scrutiny of his deeply conservative Daddy—a worrywart of Herculean proportions—and annoyingly pious Oldest Sister). The narrative rambles about amiably, as Gary bonds affectionately with his doting, dotty maiden Aunt Eva (who may remind readers of Truman Capote’s immortal Cousin Sook), trespasses the bounds of decency with his hellion cousin Kate, works as a temporary sportswriter covering the woeful Lake Wobegon Whippets baseball team (who approach mediocrity, thanks to star pitcher Roger Guppy, Kate’s secret beau), and tentatively exercises his writing muscles further by concocting hilariously inchoate short stories (don’t miss the one about the deflowering of Eleanor of Aquitaine*). It’s a delightful comic romp, featuring characters who deserve to become legends—like Lake Wobegon’s own Bonnie and Clyde, criminal fugitives Ricky Guppy (Roger’s brother) and his girlfriend Dede, who versify their exploits for the newspapers (“To live in peace is our desire. / We love each other. Hold your fire”) and Whippets’ coach Ding Schoenecker (his policy on drinking in the dugout: “If you can’t remember how many strikes on you, you’ve had too much”). Gary dutifully records them all, while burning with numerous unslakeable lusts.
Think Huckleberry Finn in hormonal overdrive, or Penrod with a perpetual erection. They won’t be assigning this one in elementary schools, but adults of all ages should find Keillor’s refreshingly impudent Americana just about irresistible.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-03003-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2001
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
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