An earnest but overlong story about philosophy, gay rights, and religion.
In Pierce’s debut novel, four students at a small Midwestern college join a philosophy club that organizes an explosive debate.
As the fall term begins at Wasserman College in 1987, four students arrive on campus, each harboring reservations about the experience. Eighteen-year-old Paul Jorkinn has indicated he’d prefer a gay roommate, and transfer student Edward Filkers has done the same. Lynn Ritchie, a lifelong resident of the town, registers for music classes despite the fact that she, like many other locals, never cared about the college very much. Occasional student Craig Loomis, having left his factory job, reregisters at Wasserman for one more go. Overseeing the students is administrator Amelia Rosser, who’s personally assigned Edward and Paul to the same room and is fully aware of the potentially controversial nature of that decision. The lengthy narrative stretches over more than 750 pages and revolves around the campus philosophy club, which takes the provocative step of organizing a campus debate regarding homosexuality and religious doctrine. Meanwhile, gay students, including Edward and Paul, push to form an activist gay and lesbian organization—a move that some other students view as radical. As the plans move forward, tensions rise on campus, and a new kind of activism leads to fears of unforeseen consequences. Over the course of Pierce’s epic-length novel, he does a fine job of characterizing university life in the late 1980s, including the intense bigotry toward gay people, which included violence. The various characters are well drawn, for the most part. However, there are also too many people with the surname Smith, which may lead to some confusion. The students’ philosophical discussions can also be rather lengthy, so that the writing starts to feel hazy, and the main thread of the plot gets lost. The impassioned conclusion is an effective one. However, a stronger edit would have trimmed the excess before it.
An earnest but overlong story about philosophy, gay rights, and religion.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2004
ISBN: 978-1-4140-1045-8
Page Count: 740
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.
Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.
It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society. Our soon-to-be orphaned narrator’s mother is a substance-abusing teenage single mom who checks out via OD on his 11th birthday, and Demon’s cynical, wised-up voice is light-years removed from David Copperfield’s earnest tone. Yet readers also see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath his self-protective exterior. Like pretty much everyone else in Lee County, Virginia, hollowed out economically by the coal and tobacco industries, he sees himself as someone with no prospects and little worth. One of Kingsolver’s major themes, hit a little too insistently, is the contempt felt by participants in the modern capitalist economy for those rooted in older ways of life. More nuanced and emotionally engaging is Demon’s fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it. Kingsolver’s ferocious indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, angrily stated by a local girl who has become a nurse, is in the best Dickensian tradition, and Demon gives a harrowing account of his descent into addiction with his beloved Dori (as naïve as Dickens’ Dora in her own screwed-up way). Does knowledge offer a way out of this sinkhole? A committed teacher tries to enlighten Demon’s seventh grade class about how the resource-rich countryside was pillaged and abandoned, but Kingsolver doesn’t air-brush his students’ dismissal of this history or the prejudice encountered by this African American outsider and his White wife. She is an art teacher who guides Demon toward self-expression, just as his friend Tommy provokes his dawning understanding of how their world has been shaped by outside forces and what he might be able to do about it.
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-325-1922
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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