by Bob Boone ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 10, 2011
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A collection of short stories examining the inner life of educators at various junctures in their careers.
The title refers to the framing device Boone (Inside Job: A Life of Teaching, 2003, etc.) employs, where at least one character in each piece has a connection to Forest High School, either as instructor or pupil. The most moving stories focus on aging instructors and their legacies, after having influenced the lives of coworkers and pupils, for better or worse. “Funny in the Summer” centers on the relationship between Armand, a veteran educator approaching retirement, and Julie, a younger instructor who presses him to share humorous memories from his long career. This daily recounting of anecdotes inspires Armand to write down his recollections, starting with the letter A and continuing through the alphabet: “A could be Antonio, who used to sing in class, or A could be All Quiet on the Western Front, or the apricot someone stuck in his briefcase.” Decades of viewing alphabetized lists of student names have apparently permeated Armand’s mind and determined his methodological approach to most tasks. However, Boone does not glorify all teachers as laudable role models or paragons of organization. “Special Project” presents the power struggle between two characters with equally lackluster records: Jerome, a chronically absent student with few completed assignments, and Arthur, an English teacher with poor judgment who forgets that Jerome is enrolled in his class. When grades are due, Arthur attempts to negotiate a mutually beneficial agreement and alter his grade book by hand. Boone’s economical use of dialogue serves a dual purpose, as characters reveal questionable attitudes in a small amount of space or, more often, withhold uncomfortable truths from themselves and others. These layered, often humorous classroom insights are buoyed by the author’s lean, clear writing style. The author will find an eager audience among readers who work in the profession, but these stories are genuinely accessible for any student who has ever wondered what’s happening on the other side of the desk.
Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0970841667
Page Count: 100
Publisher: Amika Press
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
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
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