by B. T. Post ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 13, 2008
A merry, if uneven, romp through an end-times conspiracy.
A novel about the end of cheap energy features compelling characters, dysfunctional families and a good dose of black humor.
Set against the lush backdrop of Tampa Bay, Fla., this novel combines the politics of peak oil and economic apartheid with characters and situations that rival Carl Hiaasen’s in their absurdity and black humor. Liz Delaney, recently widowed and inching herself back into life in a new career as a mental health professional, meets Bud Jackson, a renegade journalist whose discoveries about the truth behind the worldwide energy economy land him in a mental institution. What ensues is seven days of hectic revelations about the potential collapse of everyday life, brushes with death, social commentary, examinations of power and an arch look at our healthcare system. Added to the mix are Liz’s blackmailing and murdering quadriplegic brother, his nymphomaniac wife, an evangelical plastic surgeon who runs the Born Again Clinic and a wise professor in a mangrove swamp, among other memorable characters. And yes, there is a hurricane. Despite of–or because of–these elements, this surreal narrative works. Strong descriptions of patients and staff make the hospital and institutional settings compelling in their compassion and humanity. Wry humor in discussions of consumer behavior and greed relieves the polemic that drives the novel. While the main narrative is an apocalyptic one, larger-than-life characters and wacky situations–like the huge hired bomb maker who wears a bright yellow shirt and is interrupted, twice, while trying to set a car bomb–engage the reader. Unfortunately, humor and family dysfunction diminish as the story reaches its climax. Action-packed scenes and plot turns excite, but character development and dialogue become mired down with socio-political rhetoric: “people are placated by dreams of wealth while a distant upper stream actually benefits from their labors.” Still, a taut plot, hilarious characters and a vivid portrayal of different aspects of health–mental, environmental and cultural–provide a rollicking read.
A merry, if uneven, romp through an end-times conspiracy.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2008
ISBN: 978-1419690648
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Helen Fremont ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 11, 2020
A vivid sequel that strains credulity.
Fremont (After Long Silence, 1999) continues—and alters—her story of how memories of the Holocaust affected her family.
At the age of 44, the author learned that her father had disowned her, declaring her “predeceased”—or dead in his eyes—in his will. It was his final insult: Her parents had stopped speaking to her after she’d published After Long Silence, which exposed them as Jewish Holocaust survivors who had posed as Catholics in Europe and America in order to hide multilayered secrets. Here, Fremont delves further into her tortured family dynamics and shows how the rift developed. One thread centers on her life after her harrowing childhood: her education at Wellesley and Boston University, the loss of her virginity to a college boyfriend before accepting her lesbianism, her stint with the Peace Corps in Lesotho, and her decades of work as a lawyer in Boston. Another strand involves her fraught relationship with her sister, Lara, and how their difficulties relate to their father, a doctor embittered after years in the Siberian gulag; and their mother, deeply enmeshed with her own sister, Zosia, who had married an Italian count and stayed in Rome to raise a child. Fremont tells these stories with novelistic flair, ending with a surprising theory about why her parents hid their Judaism. Yet she often appears insensitive to the serious problems she says Lara once faced, including suicidal depression. “The whole point of suicide, I thought, was to succeed at it,” she writes. “My sister’s completion rate was pathetic.” Key facts also differ from those in her earlier work. After Long Silence says, for example, that the author grew up “in a small city in the Midwest” while she writes here that she grew up in “upstate New York,” changes Fremont says she made for “consistency” in the new book but that muddy its narrative waters. The discrepancies may not bother readers seeking psychological insights rather than factual accuracy, but others will wonder if this book should have been labeled a fictionalized autobiography rather than a memoir.
A vivid sequel that strains credulity.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982113-60-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
A straightforward tale of kindness and paying it forward in 1980s New York.
When advertising executive Schroff answered a child’s request for spare change by inviting him for lunch, she did not expect the encounter to grow into a friendship that would endure into his adulthood. The author recounts how she and Maurice, a promising boy from a drug-addicted family, learned to trust each other. Schroff acknowledges risks—including the possibility of her actions being misconstrued and the tension of crossing socio-economic divides—but does not dwell on the complexities of homelessness or the philosophical problems of altruism. She does not question whether public recognition is beneficial, or whether it is sufficient for the recipient to realize the extent of what has been done. With the assistance of People human-interest writer Tresniowski (Tiger Virtues, 2005, etc.), Schroff adheres to a personal narrative that traces her troubled relationship with her father, her meetings with Maurice and his background, all while avoiding direct parallels, noting that their childhoods differed in severity even if they shared similar emotional voids. With feel-good dramatizations, the story seldom transcends the message that reaching out makes a difference. It is framed in simple terms, from attributing the first meeting to “two people with complicated pasts and fragile dreams” that were “somehow meant to be friends” to the conclusion that love is a driving force. Admirably, Schroff notes that she did not seek a role as a “substitute parent,” and she does not judge Maurice’s mother for her lifestyle. That both main figures experience a few setbacks yet eventually survive is never in question; the story fittingly concludes with an epilogue by Maurice. For readers seeking an uplifting reminder that small gestures matter.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4251-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Howard Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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by Laura Schroff & Alex Tresniowski ; illustrated by Barry Root
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