No villains here, but only precisely rendered proof that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
In an enthralling tragedy built on a foundation of small misfortunes, Dubus (Bluesman, 1993, etc.) offers in detail the unraveling life of a woman who, in her undoing, brings devastation to the families of those in her path.
It was bad enough when Kathy Lazaro stepped out of the shower one morning to find herself evicted from her house, a small bungalow to be auctioned the very next day in a county tax sale; bad enough that her recovering-addict husband had left her some time before, and that she had no friends at all in California to help her move or put her up. Then she also had to fall for the guy who evicted her, Deputy Les Burdon—married, with two kids. Sympathetic to her plight, Les lines up legal counsel and makes sure she has a place to stay, but his optimism (and the lawyer’s) hits an immovable object in proud ex-Colonel Behrani, formerly of the Iranian Air Force, who fled his homeland with his family when the Shah was deposed and who has struggled secretly in San Francisco for years to maintain appearances until his daughter can make a good marriage. He’s sunken his remaining life savings into buying Kathy’s house, at a tremendous bargain, planning to reinvent himself as a real-estate speculator, and he has no wish to sell it back when informed that the county made a bureaucratic error. Hounded by both Kathy and Les—who has moved out, guiltily, on his family and brought his lover, herself a recovering addict, back to the bar scene—Behrani is increasingly unable to shield his wife and teenaged son from the ugly truth, but he still won’t yield. Then Kathy tries to kill herself, and Les takes the law into his own hands.
No villains here, but only precisely rendered proof that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 978-0393046977
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998
A touching, sometimes-funny, often wise portrait of grief.
A contemporary fairy tale from the whimsical author of A Man Called Ove (2014).
Elsa is almost 8, and her granny is her best—and only—friend. Elsa’s precociousness and her granny’s disregard for societal rules mark them as trouble to most people they encounter and make Elsa a pariah at school. But every night she can journey with her granny to the Land-of-Almost-Awake, made of six kingdoms, each with its own strength, purpose, and interlocking mythologies that Elsa knows by heart. In the Land-of-Almost-Awake, Elsa doesn’t have to worry about how she fits in at school, in the apartment building full of misfits where she lives, or in her family, where both her parents are divorced and remarried and her mother is pregnant. When granny passes away with very little notice, Elsa is bereft. And angry. So angry that it’s almost no consolation that Elsa’s granny has left her a treasure hunt. But the hunt reveals that each misfit in her apartment building has a connection to her granny, and they all have a story reflected in the Land-of-Almost-Awake. Neither world is short on adventure, tragedy, or danger. This is a more complex tale than Backman’s debut, and it is intricately, if not impeccably, woven. The third-person narrative voice, when aligned with Elsa’s perspective, reveals heartfelt, innocent observations, but when moving toward omniscience, it can read as too clever by half. Given a choice, Backman seems more likely to choose poignancy over logic; luckily, the choice is not often necessary. As in A Man Called Ove, there are clear themes here, nominally: the importance of stories; the honesty of children; and the obtuseness of most adults, putting him firmly in league with the likes of Roald Dahl and Neil Gaiman.
A touching, sometimes-funny, often wise portrait of grief.Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1506-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
