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ISLAND

Name: ISLAND
Author: Charles Abbott
ISBN: 0-06-019050-7

by Charles Abbott ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1994

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Pseudonymous first novel by a ``prizewinning author of distinguished nonfiction'' who died in 1992: an earnest, absorbing, if occasionally awkward, tale that explores the nature of love and happiness as it traces the descent and recovery of an isolated urban drinker. The only son of a poor Episcopalian minister and his bitter, hypercritical wife, Frederick Fay grew up in 1930's Connecticut in a state of acute shyness and self-loathing. His skill at fleeing schoolyard bullies eventually led to a track scholarship to Princeton, where Fred was so dazzled by his wealthy, preppy classmates that he internalized every detail of their manner and dress. Winning a job at an N.Y.C. ad agency, Fred doggedly pursued his climb up the social ladder, taking time out for a job in the Air Force during WW II. Then, back in New York, Fred resumed his career, married socialite Julia Fanshawe, and moved into an apartment in Sutton Place. Soon, however, the stress of keeping up appearances—despite no real friends, a loveless marriage, and an inability to perform his job—led Fred to drinking. When, in quick succession, he was fired from his job, discovered his wife in bed with a woman friend, and lost Fran Collins, his passionate but lower-class lover, Fred drank himself into oblivion until a therapist gradually pulled him out of his depression. Now, fleeing to tiny Sheep Island off the New England coast, Fred constructs a home for himself as another form of therapy. Gradually forging a few honest connections with residents, he even takes a job as the local garbageman in his efforts to learn how life should truly be lived. Miraculously, his former lover returns to him. Thus all live happily ever after in what is less a credible work of a fiction than a working-out of what it means to be real. A Pinocchio story for grown-ups: mostly affecting, even if its workings do show.

Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1994

ISBN: 0-06-019050-7

Page Count: 480

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

- BOOK REVIEW
YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.