A tense post-apocalyptic drama that reads as if the kids in Lord of the Flies were savvy enough to grow up and form...
In a barbarous future following economic apocalypse, what’s left of the city of Asheville, North Carolina, faces a military and ideological threat from a hostile, degenerate tribe led by a vengeful ex-citizen.
Veteran author Mustin’s (Sam’s Place, 2013, etc.) sci-fi tale is a compelling, disturbingly urgent spin on the Riddley Walker–esque retro-barbarism-of-the-future theme, contained within a timely (if loaded) debate on laissez faire versus central authority. The story envisions what used to be the southern United States in the winter of 2090, a few generations following the “Great Debacle,” a worldwide economic depression triggered by a monopolist-tycoon U.S. president and an abundance of guns. Associated pandemic guerilla warfare destroyed much of civilization, and what was once Asheville is now the Citadel, a compound of tents and ruins, run along authoritarian lines by Mayor Samuel II. Still, it functions as a cooperative society compared to Freedomland, a surrounding territory populated by “Outliers,” tribal survivalists backsliding ever more into primitivism. Formerly at war with the Citadel, Outliers have established a dubious form of détente, including trade and parlays, under their new chieftain, Abraham Trapper. But Abraham was once Isaac Editor, a prominent Citadel member who defected to anarchy in the name of “sovereign” individualism and brawny self-determination (mental illness is involved; sorry tea party Nietzscheans). In the Citadel, Abraham’s old friend Jakob Historian (scribe for the community’s surviving monthly newspaper) learns that Abraham’s battered slave-wife is his lost love, presumed killed in action many years earlier, one of a number of psychological blows (some cunningly planned ahead by Abraham/Isaac) intended to shake Jakob’s belief in the Citadel way of life. For a narrative containing many philosophical poses, the contest between militia-mindset nihilism and organized government is still put across in terms that rile the mind and stir the blood and are eerily reflective of current talk radio bloviations. Readers living in the author’s Blue Ridge Mountains area will be particularly struck by the sense of place.
A tense post-apocalyptic drama that reads as if the kids in Lord of the Flies were savvy enough to grow up and form political parties.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1631734465
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Gridley Fires Books
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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