A book that will likely hold the interest of cycling enthusiasts despite serious flaws.
In Hutchinson’s (Twisted Trails, 2015) short novel, a teenager struggles with the sullied legacy of his athlete father.
Andrew Gamble was the most successful professional cyclist the sport had ever seen, a living legend. His fame crumbled into infamy, though, when he was caught in a scandal involving performance-enhancing drugs while competing in France. Instead of facing up to his mistake, Gamble fled, abandoning his wife and 12-year-old son, Connor; he then disappeared without a trace. Connor was taken in by his uncle, Neal, the owner of a well-known bicycle shop called Modest Cycles. Five years later, Connor has taken up cycling despite the long shadow of his father’s notoriety. The sport is apparently in Connor’s blood, and he enthusiastically commits to it; he also becomes obsessed with a talented, masked rider whom he’s convinced is his father (“a masked man who wins races but never shows up for the prize”). Meanwhile, Darwin Camot, an author famous for a bestselling book about cycling, is sentenced to community service after a run-in with the law, and he tries to use this misstep as an opportunity to reform a wayward life. Hutchinson writes with a deep love and knowledge of the sport and vividly brings MacAskill, Rhode Island, to life—a fictional small town essentially founded by and for cycling devotees. But although the narrative is structured around the sport, the principal themes transcend it; in different ways, both Connor and Darwin are in search of elusive redemption. This is a very brief work—more a novella than a full-fledged novel—and the story unfolds too quickly for it to develop more than a patina of emotional authenticity. Connor’s angst rings truest, as he paradoxically tries to emulate a father whom he holds in contempt: “ ‘My dad's not innocent,’ Connor confessed. ‘He was a cheater and a drug user. The Feds think he fled to Mexico. I hope he never comes back.’ ” However, the remaining characters seem underdeveloped, and although Andrew is, in many ways, the fulcrum of the whole tale, he frustratingly remains an enigma. Overall, the book wonderfully depicts its sport, but it falls short as both mystery and emotional drama.
A book that will likely hold the interest of cycling enthusiasts despite serious flaws.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-76335-3
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Twisted Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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