Psychotherapist and children's author Reiner comes to dinner at the grownups' table, and brings along with her a repertoire of tall tales and shaggy-dog stories that might play well in the nursery but seem a trifle recherchÇ for the guests downstairs. The rhetoric of most of the 17 pieces here falls somewhere between surrealism and magical realism—anything but realism per se, which doesn't make much of an appearance anywhere in the volume. The narrative drift is easy to catch and frequently amusing, as in ``A Special Morning Report'' (which portrays the frustrations of a middle-aged man who finds every action of his day watched and reported on by the radio and TV news broadcasts) or ``Time and Again'' (which follows the confusions and anxieties that result from the reincarnation of a black woman from the South as a 17-year-old Connecticut preppie). Sometimes, however, the musty air of the writing workshop becomes a trifle overpowering, and results in pieces that seem more like five-finger exercises for the laptop than actual narratives in any recognizable sense. ``In My Own Words—by God'' is precisely that: a guest editorial (lament would be far too strong a word) by the author of the universe, who complains that his creation seems to have slipped from his control. ``Nietzsche Speaks'' introduces us to a semiliterate beautician who becomes suddenly erudite when drunk, and systematically turns herself into a dipsomaniac in order to finish a two-volume study of the German philosopher. And ``The Heisenbergs'' gives a brief history of the married couple by that name whose every action is surrounded by the deepest uncertainty. Low-cal and no fat throughout: There is some wit and real originality in Reiner's imagination, but all of her constructions seem to be enclosed around a single gimmick that becomes obvious in short order and holds no surprises and few insights thereafter. A three-ring circus filled with one-trick ponies.
Pub Date: July 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-7871-0707-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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