CONTROL

by William Goldman ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 29, 1982

After lavishing his considerable skills on the nearly plotless Hollywood scene in Tinsel, Goldman now returns to the suspense style of Marathon Man and Magic--with a novel that seems to be on a par with those slick winners. . . till its pick-up-sticks narrative collapses into a gimmicky, sci-fi muddle. Once again Goldman quickly snares the attention with alternating, apparently unrelated stories--each interesting in its own right--that promise to somehow link up. There's the tale of Edith Holtzman, a 40-ish Manhattan matron who inexplicably goes suicidally berserk in Bloomingdale's and later succeeds in drowning herself (after telling best friend Sally that ""Something was inside my brain besides my brain""). There's the oddly old-fashioned (hint, hint) tale of an adulterous Manhattan triangle: Mrs. Charlotte Stewart sleeps with her children's young tutor, poetical Thee Duncan, behind her rich old husband's back. There's the story of young N.Y. cop Eric Lorber, a psychiatrist's son who becomes the street-wise protÉgÉ of dour veteran cop Haggerty. And there's giant escaped-convict Billy Boy--""an eerie shit sadist killer with the brain of a pea"" who arrives in Manhattan, kills some people with his super-human arms, and visits a Times Sq. fortune-teller (who senses Billy's wild psychic vibes). So the big question--how will all these plots hook up?--keeps things taut and creepy through the novel's first half Then, unfortunately, Goldman has to start explaining. First, cop Eric tracks down Billy and (after Haggerty gets killed) is just about to nab him. . . when the killer is abducted into a limousine! What's going on? Well, while Eric tries to pick up Billy's trail (encountering mysterious coverups), we learn that super-psychic Billy has been grabbed as a guinea pig for a government experiment in ""traveling clairvoyance"": time-travel via reverse reincarnation. Edith Holtzman, you see, was an unknowing victim of just such an experiment. And the experiment on reluctant Billy is going to involve the above-mentioned Theo Duncan, Billy's 1876 reincarnation: Billy will regress, become Theo, and change history by preventing Alexander G. Bell from patenting the telephone! (""Once we get back to 1876 and nail Bell, we can go to 1917 and kill Trotsky. . . ."") Sounds silly? It sure is, especially when Billy/Theo runs up against a rival KGB time-traveler. Moreover, the whole shifty idea is an old one much favored in fantasy short-stories and on TV. So, though readers partial to fantasy may be satisifed, most others--sucked in by Goldman's zesty storytelling only to find themselves in The Twilight Zone--will probably end up feeling something between mild disappointment and major irritation.

Pub Date: March 29, 1982

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1982

Categories: FICTION