Outré and disturbingly engaging.
A novel that reads like a journal—with all entries meditations on the theme of death.
If readers approach this book with conventional expectations (e.g., exposition, complication, climax, denouement), they will be disappointed, for McCartney (The End of the World Book, 2008) forgoes all these elements of fiction. Instead, the narrator—whose voice is impossible to distinguish from that of the author—offers us thoughts on death, dying, corpses, coffins, grave robbers, hearses, cemeteries, and much more. The setting that serves as the locus of “action” here is Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles, the final resting place (as the narrator informs us) of Rita Hayworth, Sharon Tate, Lawrence Welk, and Jimmy Durante, and surely a group as disparate as this shows us death as the great equalizer. We also learn about mass murderers such as the Birnies, a couple who over a period of two months in 1986 “abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered four young women” in Australia, where the author grew up. In fact, he (or the narrator) claims to have met them once. The narrative that unfolds here is obviously grim, but the arcana can be undeniably fascinating. (One is tempted to insert “alas” here.) For example, among other lessons, we learn about the “odors” of death. The narrator admits to being obsessed by his subject. As he states, “I’m the world’s worst listener, except when the subject is death and my ears prick up.” And he’s not concerned solely with the material world—metaphysical speculations enter into his thoughts as well: “when it comes to death, God is at his most imaginative; death is where he gets creative.”
Outré and disturbingly engaging.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-299-31470-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Univ. of Wisconsin
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
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
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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