Rich, witty, outrageous fun: Canadian author Cumyn, in his US debut, is not afraid to go over the top for effect, but he is...
A riotous tale of sexual perversities in Ottawa and the afflictions of Job as they are visited upon a hapless middle-aged college professor.
If David Lodge had written the script for Glen or Glenda?, it might have turned out something like this. Begin with one Bob Sterling, a quiet family man and a teacher at the University of Ottawa who specializes in the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Bob has an attractive and pleasant wife named Julia and a rollicking baby boy named Matthew. His mother-in-law Lenore is increasingly senile, but she’s being well looked-after in the Fallowfields Home. Bob drinks a bit more than he should, but his career seems assured and his life is pretty well under control—except for his one great, secret vice: Bob likes to wear women’s clothing. The only person who knows is Sienna Chu, a Chinese-Irish graduate student who travels with Bob to a Poe conference in New York and seduces him in his hotel room. No sooner has Bob found bliss with the domineering Sienna, however, than word arrives that his mother-in-law has escaped from Fallowfields. After she’s found wandering the streets of Ottawa, Julia decides Lenore needs to live with them for her own safety. This makes home life more than slightly unpleasant, and drives Bob even deeper into the clutches of Sienna—who, unfortunately, has a jealous boyfriend who vows revenge on Bob. Julia, meanwhile, finds herself the object of increasing attention from Donny Clatch, an old schoolmate who’s now renovating her bathroom. Just when it looks like all hell is going to break loose, the house burns down—set afire by the demented Lenore. Can a conflagration save a troubled family? Remember the story of the Phoenix?
Rich, witty, outrageous fun: Canadian author Cumyn, in his US debut, is not afraid to go over the top for effect, but he is patient and painstaking enough to bring off a coherent and well-thought-out storyline.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-30691-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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