A lonely old man with plenty of answers fixates on a lively young woman filled with questions, with the usual tragic results, in this forced debut from Utah-born Rock. Situated smack on the border between holier-than-thou Mormon country and anything-goes Nevada, the drama begins when an elderly ace blackjack dealer in Wendover meets Charlotte, the niece of a former lover, who's seeking information and experience that will take her well beyond her narrow Mormon upbringing. What starts as a cribbage game ends as full-blown obsession, since the dealer is vain enough to believe that what Charlotte must desire is a man who's seen it all: himself. Unfortunately for him, her search has both spiritual and physical dimensions, and involves the decipherment of mysterious signs she discovers in the nearby desert; she ultimately decides that a young would-be race-car driver, Keith, has more to offer than a cribbage board and takes said Keith along to Vegas. There, Charlotte gets a taste of the wide world when she's seduced by a voracious chorus girl, then goes off with Keith and a wild drug-runner, who enlists their help in his addled plan to scare his hometown into thinking aliens are landing in their alfalfa fields. After that debacle, she and Keith hit the road again. The odd pair alight in Salt Lake City, where Charlotte awaits her epiphany. When it comes, unexpectedly, in the form of the blackjack dealer, who has kept track of her wherever she's gone, it proves to be a trial by fire from which only the old man walks away unscathed. The vivid vignettes of life in Nevada and Utah notwithstanding, this is a saga with an uncertain focus, some unlikely connections, and a lot, at the end, left unexplained.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-48598-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© 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.
