First fiction, set at the end of WW I, in which a frontier Kenyan hotel provides rest, shelter, and large drinks to a fugitive Gypsy, wounded Tommies, murderous Irishmen, scheming Portuguese colonials, displaced Germans, an American cowboy, and a pretty Welsh woman. Bull's nonfiction Safari (1988) covered some of the same geography. Having sold the bulk of his British estate and mismanaged his plantation ventures, Adam Penfold finds that his fortune has dwindled to the White Rhino, a hotel in the Kenyan highlands. Lord Penfold and his oppressively horsy lady Sissy preside over the place, leaving management to their major-domo Olivio, a dwarf whose spying and sexual skills are state of the art. As there is much to spy out and many itches to scratch, Olivio is a very busy man. The end of the war has brought a new wave of settlers to the colony, hopeful men and women who are about to find out that the rich Kenyan soils are very choosy about what crops they'll support and that the old Kenyan colonials can be as treacherous as the worst villains in Europe. Anton Rider, with his gypsy skills and restless intelligence, is one of the few immigrants truly suited to the whims of Africa. Dashing Anton has become smitten with Gwenn Llewellyn, who has joined her badly crippled husband to carve out a new life and who has already made a couple of very dangerous enemies in a pair of violent Irish brothers. Adam and Gwenn are made for each other, but before they sort things out, there are swamps to ford, savannahs to cross, dalliances to be enjoyed, pythons to wrestle, elephants to cook, and legal business to sort out. Very nicely done. Bull has sensibly resisted the temptation to turn his racy African adventures into a sweeping, gabby epic, so everything moves at a cracking pace. Much ground is covered, but since the time is short, the stories are well contained.
Pub Date: May 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-670-83998-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1992
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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