A diverting comedy familiar in style though unusual in content.
Five Weekquaesgeek who leased Manhattan to the Dutch 400 years ago return to reclaim their land in this caper.
In 1626, Gov. Gen. Peter Minuit tricked Chief Flying Cloud into signing over a 400- (not 40-) year lease on Manhattan Island. Since then, Minuit, a powerful wizard, has exerted a controlling influence on the borough, buying real estate and demanding obeisance from politicians and criminals alike. For their part, Chief Flying Cloud and the remnants of his tribe have been in a mystical sleep, waiting for the 400 years to pass. They awake in Central Park and meet Tom Linden, a tour guide with a master’s in American history. Tom is moved to help the Weekquaesgeek pursue their claim, but first he must acclimatize them to New York City in all its unfathomable modernity. Minuit, meanwhile, creates a golem to set upon Chief Flying Cloud. Will Tom and the Weekquaesgeek survive this and other attacks? Can the Native Americans reassemble the Spear of Lightning and Thunder and take back what is theirs? Can the wizard be defeated? And does Tom have a chance with the chief’s fearsome daughter, Fights Like a Man? De Castro (Chasing Your Tail, 2017) has crafted a film comedy in prose form and makes suitably merry with the culture clash between displaced Native Americans and modern New Yorkers (the former often showing up the absurdities of the latter). The authenticity of the Weekquaesgeek characterization is hard to judge except to say that they come across as honorable, intelligent, and far more capable than the Americans who supplanted them. The present-day players are over-the-top, but in the deliberately heightened, snappy-dialogue way of rom-coms. The supernatural creatures are played for laughs, the drollest of which come from the pacifist golem as it seeks out its own destruction at the inept hands of the NYPD. Tom in many ways is the least developed of the protagonists, but such, perhaps, is the way of the stock Everyman character. The lighthearted adventure froths along regardless and carries him with it—well-scripted, if inconsequential.
A diverting comedy familiar in style though unusual in content.Pub Date: April 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64133-403-7
Page Count: 242
Publisher: AuthorCentrix, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.
Another surprise from an author who never writes the same novel twice.
Though Whitehead has earned considerable critical acclaim for his earlier work—in particular his debut (The Intuitionist, 1999) and its successor (John Henry Days, 2001)—he’ll likely reach a wider readership with his warmest novel to date. Funniest as well, though there have been flashes of humor throughout his writing. The author blurs the line between fiction and memoir as he recounts the coming-of-age summer of 15-year-old Benji Cooper in the family’s summer retreat of New York’s Sag Harbor. “According to the world, we were the definition of paradox: black boys with beach houses,” writes Whitehead. Caucasians are only an occasional curiosity within this idyll, and parents are mostly absent as well. Each chapter is pretty much a self-contained entity, corresponding to a rite of passage: getting the first job, negotiating the mysteries of the opposite sex. There’s an accident with a BB gun and plenty of episodes of convincing someone older to buy beer, but not much really happens during this particular summer. Yet by the end of it, Benji is well on his way to becoming Ben, and he realizes that he is a different person than when the summer started. He also realizes that this time in his life will eventually live only in memory. There might be some distinctions between Benji and Whitehead, though the novelist also spent his youthful summers in Sag Harbor and was the same age as Benji in 1985, when the novel is set. Yet the first-person narrator has the novelist’s eye for detail, craft of character development and analytical instincts for sharp social commentary.
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.Pub Date: April 28, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-52765-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK TO SCREEN
A steamy, glitzy, and tender tale of college intrigue.
In this opener to Kennedy’s (Hot & Bothered, 2017, etc.) Briar U romance series, two likable students keep getting their signals crossed.
Twenty-one-year-old Summer Heyward-Di Laurentis is expelled from Brown University in the middle of her junior year because she was responsible for a fire at the Kappa Beta Nu sorority house. Fortunately, her father has connections, so she’s now enrolled in Briar University, a prestigious institution about an hour outside Boston. But as she’s about to move into Briar’s Kappa Beta Nu house, she’s asked to leave by the sisters, who don’t want her besmirching their reputation. Her older brother Dean, who’s a former Briar hockey star, comes to her rescue; his buddies, who are still on the hockey team, need a fourth roommate for their townhouse. Three good-looking hockey jocks and a very rich, gorgeous fashion major under the same roof—what could go wrong? Summer becomes quickly infatuated with one of her housemates: Dean’s best friend Colin “Fitzy” Fitzgerald. There’s a definite spark between them, and they exchange smoldering looks, but the tattooed Fitzy, who’s also a video game reviewer and designer, is an introvert who prefers no “drama” in his life. Summer, however, is a charming extrovert, although she has an inferiority complex about her flagging scholastic acumen. As the story goes on, the pair seem to misinterpret each other’s every move. Meanwhile, another roommate and potential suitor, Hunter Davenport, is waiting in the wings. Kennedy’s novel is full of sex, alcohol, and college-level profanity, but it never becomes formulaic. The author adroitly employs snappy dialogue, steady pacing, and humor, as in a scene at a runway fashion show featuring Briar jocks parading in Summer-designed swimwear. The book also manages to touch on some serious subjects, including learning disabilities and abusive behavior by faculty members. Summer and Fitzy’s repeated stumbles propel the plot through engaging twists and turns; the characters trade off narrating the story, which gives each of them a chance to reveal some substance.
A steamy, glitzy, and tender tale of college intrigue.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72482-199-7
Page Count: 372
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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