A light, fun, and atavistic Western novel.
Ney’s debut historical novel depicts the adventures of a teenage Calamity Jane.
The famous, titular scout, born Martha Jane Canary, was an iconic figure of the Wild West who spent much of her adult life adventuring across the frontier, dressed in men’s clothing, alongside acquaintances such as “Wild Bill” Hickok. Later, she published a self-aggrandizing memoir and appeared in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, thus cementing her reputation for the ages. Jane is often portrayed in film and literature in her later, weathered years, but Ney has chosen to focus instead on Jane’s adolescence. After migrating west from Missouri to the Montana Territory during the Civil War, the Canary family has fallen on hard times; Jane’s father has become an alcoholic gambler, and her mother has turned to prostitution to help support the family. Jane—at 15, the family’s eldest child—is determined to do what she can to help her family and new community. Although she’s a crack shot, hunting rabbits isn’t enough to feed the family, so she dips her toes in endeavors as diverse as faro dealing and nursing. This coming-of-age tale wouldn’t be enough to support an entire novel, so Ney also introduces a crime plot inspired by the real-life case of Henry Plummer, who was said to have led of a gang of outlaws. Historical purists may be put off by Ney’s choice to centrally insert Jane into a situation in which she didn’t actually participate. However, fans of Western novels will enjoy the resultant narrative of road agents and justice. Ney’s frontier can occasionally feel a bit sanitized, and many secondary characters’ experiences—such as those of Lo, a Chinese merchant—would benefit from more nuanced depiction. Generally, though, Ney does a fine job of bringing the time and place alive. The details of life in the 1860s Montana mining town are rich, and the quick-moving tale is well-situated in the tradition of 20th-century frontier town novels, such as Jack Schaefer’s Shane. In one clever scene, Jane responds to her mother’s discussion of early 19th-century living with sarcasm, saying, “Musta been something, livin’ back then.” The irony, of course, is that Ney clearly believes it must have indeed been something living in Jane’s time; his enthusiasm for the old West and its literature comes through on every page.
A light, fun, and atavistic Western novel.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Dragon Tree Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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