Much like Phil’s fictitious self-help book: meant as a gag, but with enough smarts to be taken seriously.
Retired sportswriter Phil Camp feels bad about his back. And his love life. And his family. And his childhood torments.
Surprisingly, Scheft (Time Won’t Let Me, 2005, etc.), a veteran writer for The Late Show With David Letterman, keeps Phil’s story appealingly light. On a lark, Phil spent a few weeks writing a parody of self-help books; Where Do I Stow My Baggage? became a runaway bestseller thanks to the many readers who didn’t think it was a joke. The book and the syndicated column it inspired, written under the nom de plume Marty Fleck, have left Camp financially comfortable but in pain everywhere else. His back aches, his ex-wife sabotaged his last serious relationship and his half-brother Jim McManus is a Limbaugh-like radio host who routinely takes on-air swipes at the insipidness of Fleck’s insights. Shortly before Phil has back surgery, a stranger tips him off to The Power of “Ow!” by Dr. Samuel Abrun, who argues that physical pain is actually a mental problem. From there ensues a comedy of errors involving Abrun’s bright, emotionally wounded daughter; warring misunderstandings between Phil and Jim; and a host of memories about childhood neglect and adult infidelity. To keep that last plot thread from becoming too mordant, Scheft applies a Woody Allen-ish tone. Phil is genial, self-deprecating and quick with an ironic wisecrack, but ready to lay himself emotionally bare as well. Like Allen, Scheft seems to know his way around the psychiatrist’s couch; he has a keen sense of the emotional pathways of depression and of how therapy awkwardly leads people into and out of their worst experiences. A few beams are creaky: A subplot involving Derek Jeter doesn’t quite work, and the relationship between Abrun and his daughter lacks the main story’s depth. But Scheft’s rendering of family dysfunction is consistently sturdy.
Much like Phil’s fictitious self-help book: meant as a gag, but with enough smarts to be taken seriously.Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4165-9934-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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