A grim and moving contemporary fairy tale.
A Swedish teenager tries to protect a merman from their violent surroundings.
Fifteen-year-old Nella lives in a coastal town in western Sweden and must endure not only the bullies who torment her and her younger brother, Robert, but an alcoholic mother and petty-thief father, as well. As the violence threatens to overwhelm Nella—and with her brother counting on her as his sole protector—she turns to her only friend, Tommy, who's busy trying to protect his own family's secret: while his brothers were illegally running cigarettes at sea, they captured a merman in a net and are keeping him in their fisherman's hut. As one particular bully’s threats against Nella and Robert escalate, Nella’s desperation mirrors the imprisoned merman’s as they both seek escape. Vallgren (Documents Concerning Rubashov the Gambler, 2008, etc.) has written a deeply dark novel (with Flynn’s pitch-perfect translation of the teenage slang adding to the characters’ hard edges), and many scenes—especially of animal torture—may push some readers to the edge of bearability. The book’s picture of the cruelty that parents can inflict on their children, that people can inflict on animals, and that children can inflict on each other is a bleak one. But without it, Vallgren’s emphasis on empathy toward others might lose its immediacy; as Nella says of her own mother, “If I tried to understand who she was, there was basically no room for judging her, and if I judged her, that reduced the chances of understanding her.” Nella’s wise stoicism makes her a memorable and affecting character, and her connection to the mistreated merman shows that working toward understanding is what can ultimately lead to redemption.
A grim and moving contemporary fairy tale.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-60598-912-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.
Another surprise from an author who never writes the same novel twice.
Though Whitehead has earned considerable critical acclaim for his earlier work—in particular his debut (The Intuitionist, 1999) and its successor (John Henry Days, 2001)—he’ll likely reach a wider readership with his warmest novel to date. Funniest as well, though there have been flashes of humor throughout his writing. The author blurs the line between fiction and memoir as he recounts the coming-of-age summer of 15-year-old Benji Cooper in the family’s summer retreat of New York’s Sag Harbor. “According to the world, we were the definition of paradox: black boys with beach houses,” writes Whitehead. Caucasians are only an occasional curiosity within this idyll, and parents are mostly absent as well. Each chapter is pretty much a self-contained entity, corresponding to a rite of passage: getting the first job, negotiating the mysteries of the opposite sex. There’s an accident with a BB gun and plenty of episodes of convincing someone older to buy beer, but not much really happens during this particular summer. Yet by the end of it, Benji is well on his way to becoming Ben, and he realizes that he is a different person than when the summer started. He also realizes that this time in his life will eventually live only in memory. There might be some distinctions between Benji and Whitehead, though the novelist also spent his youthful summers in Sag Harbor and was the same age as Benji in 1985, when the novel is set. Yet the first-person narrator has the novelist’s eye for detail, craft of character development and analytical instincts for sharp social commentary.
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.Pub Date: April 28, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-52765-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK TO SCREEN
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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