Watson's (Montana 1948, 1993, etc.) sixth novel resonates with language as clear and images as crisp as the spare, flat prairie of its Minnesota setting.
Matthew Garth's father died when Matt was a young boy, leaving him to be raised, or watched over as he raised himself, by a withdrawn, hard-working waitress mother. But Matt has a second family, the Dunbars, parents of his best friend, Johnny. Rex Dunbar is Willow Fall's most prominent physician, and his passion for medicine fascinates Matt and Johnny, high-school seniors. Dunbar often allows them to follow along as he carries out his practice, always offering instructions about medicine's basics. It is Thanksgiving 1962. Kennedy is president but all that is Willow Falls is evocative of Eisenhower and Father Knows Best. The Dunbars, with Matt, are celebrating when word comes that young Louisa Lindahl has been shot by her boyfriend and has gone missing. The boys are sent to help search. Dr. Dunbar prepares his clinic. Louisa is discovered by other searchers, and when the boys return, Dr. Dunbar has completed surgery. The boys are curious about the nature of a gunshot wound, and as Dunbar lifts the sheet from the unconscious woman to explain his abdominal surgery, Matt catches a glimpse of her breasts. Matt is captivated, and with that, a vivid story of sexual tension, family loyalty and betrayal unfolds. Matt wants Louisa, mysterious and thoroughly erotic, everything high-school girls are not, and since her lover and assailant committed suicide, he believes he can have her. Louisa is also a manipulative opportunist. After she is given shelter by the Dunbars, she quietly sets out to seduce the doctor, determined to "…advance her station in life through imitation and force of will." The introspective, insightful and reflective narrative unfolds from Matt's adult perspective, easily inferred early but not confirmed until the conclusion.
A literary tale chronicling the painful struggle required of a boy to birth himself as a man.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-57131-078-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Milkweed
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
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
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
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