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EVERYONE AND NO ONE

Name: EVERYONE AND NO ONE
Author: Mark Jacobson
ISBN: 0-679-45656-2

by Mark Jacobson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1997

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Journalist and novelist Jacobson (Gorijo, 1991) again ventures into Tom Robbins's territory for a seriocomic fiction that purports to be a profound commentary on America's obsession with appearance, tricked up with all sorts of anthro-religious jive. The narrator is one Taylor Powell, a Tom Cruiselike superstar known simply as ``The Face.'' Along with best friend and Oscar co- winner Jimmy Dime (``a character actor with attitude''), Taylor enjoys an endless supply of the opposite sex. But the pressures of satisfying most of the country's female population are starting to weigh heavily. So when his private jet crashes, and he alone survives, he seizes the opportunity to remake himself. In Mexico, he seeks out the mysterious Dr. Parry, a former Hollywood plastic surgeon now engaged in a higher cause, who turns Taylor Powell into Dean Taylor, a nobody with a face that nevertheless has its unique features—and a kind of mystical resonance. (He is, it seems, now a kind of proletarian Everyman.) In Mexico, Dean also meets for the first time the mythic ARANA, a strange band of violent crazies who are evil personified, and with whom he becomes locked in permanent struggle: Even in remote Florida, where Dean eventually becomes a carpenter, marries, and settles down, ARANA rears its ugly head. But the real problem emerges when Dean and his wife have a son, who, not surprisingly, resembles ``The Face'' and acts out against his mysterious father without a past. The plot hurtles through time with the speed of the comet that's threatening the Earth—a looming disaster in which Dean recognizes the hand of ARANA. Dean plays a crucial role in dispersing the comet, thwarting ARANA once again, and then, his mission apparently accomplished, disappearing again, taking on yet another identity. Jacobson's one-note humor wears thin very quickly, and his ad- hoc metaphysics simply annoy.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-679-45656-2

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Villard

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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PALE HORSE RIDER
by Mark Jacobson

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THE LAMPSHADE
by Mark Jacobson

- BOOK REVIEW
TEENAGE HIPSTER IN THE MODERN WORLD
by Mark Jacobson

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.