First-rate horror anthology, its 26 tales sparked by Dante's Inferno. Crowther and Kramer recently teamed for the thematic anthology Tombs (p. 594), but this new effort holds much greater promise. On hand are Gene Wolfe with the folksy but ironic ``Bed and Breakfast,'' about a still-living man who beds down with a murderess/suicide on a small farm three miles from hell. Harlan Ellison's ``Chatting with Anubis'' follows a Chinese archaeologist and his female American companion as they dig into the Sahara and discover the huge tomb of . . . well, we won't say, but the underworld is guarded by a colossal laughing jackal, Anubis, who reveals the secret of the ages to the two scientists, a secret once revealed to Alexander the Great. In addition, three stories with especially strong pull: Douglas Clegg's ``The Ripening Sweetness of Late Afternoon,'' which draws a brilliant portrait of a streetcorner preacher with two murders on his soul who returns to his sunny hometown to be crucified on the beach where other townsfolk have been crucified awaiting his return; Storm Constantine's ``Return to Gehenna,'' in which the heroine—an office drudge whose purse holds ``an extortionate electricity bill addressed to `the occupier' at an address she didn't know; a letter from a bank advising of an abused overdraft facility, written to `whomever it may concern'; an eviction order for nonpayment of rent. A catalogue of tears and woe—financial distress in all its forms—but anonymous; evidence only of universal, urban misery''- -discovers the taste-piercing pleasures of hell; and Brian Aldiss's utterly inspired ``Dark Society,'' in which a poet's dead wife faxes him garbled messages from hell—or is it hell? Topflight horror from one proud band of storytellers.
Pub Date: March 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-56504-907-1
Page Count: 422
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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