A call to serving the homeless, couched in a novel about a community coming together.
In Madding’s fictional account of a blizzard in Atlanta, Georgia, members of a church seek to better serve the homeless in their community.
The Rev. Samuel Matthews is awakened early one morning by a call from the police, informing him that a man died on the front steps of his church the previous night. When the pastor goes to the hospital to identify the body, he learns that the man froze to death and was likely a member of Atlanta’s large homeless population. When the death is reported in the newspaper, parish members Phil Portman and Alvin Smith have a conversation about how the church could step in to better serve the homeless community. Phil is concerned about the church’s lack of funding for such endeavors, but Alvin asserts, “If we cannot afford to do the work of the church...we should close the doors and stop calling it a church.” All three men soon find their dedication to service challenged by a freak snowstorm that inspires the pastor to open the church as a temporary snow shelter. As the storm brings together the homeless and others temporarily stranded by the storm, the pastor begins to think critically about how to replicate the good deed and offer continual aid for Atlanta’s homeless of Atlanta. The book also offers final questions for reflection and an appendix of resources. Although the three-part story is set largely at a church and invokes faith, it’s never sanctimonious in tone, and it can be enjoyed by community-minded non-Christians. The author clearly establishes and develops each character, which will compel readers to take a genuine interest in their lives. Madding’s prose is clear and readable throughout without seeming overly informal. He also appears to be well acquainted with the city of Atlanta, as his descriptions are precise and easy to visualize. His overall approach to service is refreshing as he coaxes readers into examining their prejudices and selfishness.
A call to serving the homeless, couched in a novel about a community coming together.Pub Date: April 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-65851-3
Page Count: 330
Publisher: Charm House Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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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