From master black comedian Friedman (The Collected Short Fiction. . . , 1995, etc.) comes a dry, mordant take on the old story of the reluctant hit man. William Binny, a middle-aged widower and father, is an unemployed poultry worker in an unnamed town that could be Little Rock, Arkansas. Binny spends a lot of time reading big books- -Thackeray, Emerson, Gibbon's Decline and Fall—yet he remains a simple, not very bright guy who can only land a job turning on the timers at a suntanning salon. Extremely protective of his 11- year-old daughter, Binny longs for security and ``something useful'' to do. Enter Valentine Peabody, a mysterious Brit who claims that he works for a reclusive multinational billionaire named Gnu, a sensitive man who'd been tormented by childhood bullies and now wants revenge against his tormentors. Peabody thinks that Binny would be the perfect assassin—a quiet, efficient Vietnam vet, completely unknown. Binny, when presented with large sums of money, at first hesitates, then takes on the challenge of becoming a hired killer. Friedman proceeds to take us on a very silly ride—first to Miami, where Binny deals with gangs of retired Catskills comics, a bald model, an Arab who plays bar mitzvahs, and a target already more dead than alive. Binny next goes to Tokyo, where he stumbles on a parade of factory workers all brandishing inflatable penises. And he ends up in New York, where his daughter is sucked into the world of movie production. This simple hero takes it all in with an unflinching wonder, and as he bumbles about, Friedman manages to suggest that it might actually be possible to be both a (somewhat inept) assassin and a really nice guy. Not his heaviest, deepest work, but Friedman's satiric eye is keenly focused in this pleasant romp about the limits of a father's love. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1996
ISBN: 1-55611-499-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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