An impenetrable work in need of a good editor.
A veteran visual artist noted for his linocut and textile work, Mbatha (Within Loving Memory of the Century: An Autobiography, 2006) takes on the novel with a neophyte’s enthusiasm.
Having tackled his autobiography, Mbatha continues to draw inspiration from his life in writing the fictionalized incidents scattered throughout this book. Nominally, this is the story of a man who leaves South Africa in the ’60s during a time of great political and social upheaval, remains an expatriate for many years, then returns to find the country changed. Unfortunately, the through line is elusive. The minimal plot proceeds intermittently, disrupted by lengthier digressions that jerk what limited momentum the story generates to a frustrating halt. The strongest scenes find the protagonist and his compatriots, anxious and hopeful about the nation’s future, reacting to the challenging events that lead, by way of much tribulation, to the inclusive and troubled democracy we know today. Scenes that describe the protagonist’s reminiscences following his return reverberate with the pang of one who has been away from home too long. Somewhere within this immense tome lies a novel of self-discovery, but the relatively thin narrative remains entombed in rambling, unfocused prose that deviates toward such disparate subjects as labor politics, the evolution of feline carnivores, the disposition of artists and paraphrased transcripts of historic South African senate debates. Worse yet, these disorganized, sometimes maddeningly repetitive excursions barely intersect with the plot, leaving the impression that the book’s countless small sections were written separately and put in order arbitrarily. The text, replete with spelling errors, numerous verb-subject disagreements and several other careless grammatical mistakes, reads like it was never proofread, much less edited. With great care a fine story might be extruded from this tortured hodgepodge, but even by the most lenient postmodern definitions of the term, it would be a stretch to call this a novel.
An impenetrable work in need of a good editor.Pub Date: July 17, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4196-5961-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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