by Stephen C. Bird ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2013
Fast-paced, lewd and extremely unconventional short stories that may appeal to fans of Mark Danielewski and David Foster...
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A collection of hyperenergetic, scatological, stream-of-consciousness short stories.
Bird (Catastrophically Consequential, 2012) serves up 12 highly impressionistic stories in this revised edition of his original 2009 collection. The stories range from the frantic Harry Potter parody of “Szczmawgwhore(ts): A Pornographick Bitch-Story” to the sardonic true-crime parody of “Bobby Chushingura,” with its fierce send-up of small-town Middle America (“Bobby had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks of a rural-suburban Rust Belt town populated by wealthy equestrian enthusiasts who were only as sick as their secrets”). Also notable are the almost incoherent psychedelic ramblings of the linked stories “Gothra Schvulkopf and the Daily Grind” and “Gothra Schvulkopf and Her Pumpkin Trolls,” which, even at their most disconnected, are saved by Bird’s skilled pacing and surprisingly lovely turns of phrase: “One can espy an Amazonian jungle creeping along the edge of my bikini line. Little children burn doggie poo in paper bags on my doorstep on Halloween and run away cackling in the harvest moon dry brown leaf rustling night.” Bird is a performance artist in New York City, and many of his stories in this collection would likely be far more effective in performance, where the copious amounts of profanity would likely be funnier than they are on the page. Even so, the narrative swagger Bird brings to stories like “The Travails of Ginger Bocey” (“Her wore them dirty pants with pride, her warn’t no society lady, her life were dirty and she rubbed it in everyone’s face”) gives them a welcome, raunchy life all their own.
Fast-paced, lewd and extremely unconventional short stories that may appeal to fans of Mark Danielewski and David Foster Wallace.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615581705
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Hysterical Dementia
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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