A celebration of the dysfunctional that will keep readers turning pages.
The latest offering from conceptual artist, writer, and performer Rosenthal (Soul & Psyche, 1998, etc.) is a satirical, fantastical, and philosophical novel, illustrated with surreal photographs.
Readers begin the story with Jack Rubin, a messianic figure who has unbelievable charisma, even as a graduate student. But he’s also at least mildly schizophrenic (hearing “The Voice of the Petty Accuser”) and cares much more for his ideas and ideals than for real people. He aims to usher in a perfect world or die trying. The story then adds in his girlfriend, Beatrice Stregasanta Madregiore, a blind African-American conceptual artist (specializing in “Avant-Conceptualism…in large scale public projects and theatrical events”) with fiercely devoted students. She eventually marries Jack off to one of those students, the seriously disturbed Caroline Klein. Over the course of the story, set from 1968 to 1985, Jack and Caroline marry and beget a daughter, Jewel Marie Rubin; Jack becomes world-renowned and eventually the United Nations’ secretary-general; and Caroline, high and hysterical most of the time, has a serious car accident, scarring Jewel horribly (and Jack urges against her getting plastic surgery). Beatrice, Jewel’s godmother, takes Jewel to Rome, her spiritual retreat, and contemplates seducing her. Also in Rome, there’s Toto, a local cab driver, schemer, kidnapper, and autograph hound who picks up the two women before Beatrice experiences an apparent miracle. Later, Jack, flying into the same city, faces a tragedy of his own in the DaVinci Airport. These are the major pivot points for the plot, and Rosenthal, a very clever writer, molds it all into an addictive story. Her chapters are mostly short with quirky titles (such as “Caroline Parks Car and Walks Back Alone”), and they often act as stand-alone narrative disquisitions. We see the world sometimes through Jack’s eyes, sometimes through Caroline’s, Beatrice’s, or Toto’s, and most rivetingly, through Jewel’s. Caroline behaves monstrously to poor Jewel, but readers will find that they can’t take their eyes away. They’ll also sometimes wonder what’s real and what’s not—and exactly what kind of magic might be at work.
A celebration of the dysfunctional that will keep readers turning pages.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-937739-92-8
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Deadly Chaps Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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