An imaginative but uneven tale about golf’s legendary roots.
A debut historical novel offers a fictionalization of the origins of golf.
An aging pirate and mandolin player named Mulligan returns to Ireland after many years at sea and adopts a boy who he suspects may be his illegitimate son. The stuttering, bullied boy, named Bogie, offers an opportunity for Mulligan to begin his life anew, away from the ocean. But how does a man make his living on land? Mulligan recalls “the idea he had heard some time ago that Scotland could give him a great opportunity to make lots of money carrying sticks for a French game called colf.” With that, Mulligan and the young Bogie set out for St. Andrews in Scotland, where the two find work as caddies for the gentlemen who play the game there—which, as they soon discover, is called “golf.” Bogie’s talent for the game creates tension between the traditional players of the sport—who see it as an activity unworthy of the lower classes—and the caddies who wish to be given a shot at conquering the links. As Mulligan and Bogie go up against the status quo, they have the opportunity to leave their marks—as well as their names—on the game for centuries to come. The novel serves as an origin myth, and Hellman treats his subject as a tall tale, teasing his events to farcical heights in the tradition of Gulliver’s Travels or Tristram Shandy. The lighthearted plot is entertaining enough if one can get through it: the novel is long, digressive, and rather monotonous in terms of tension and pacing. The characters are colorful and compelling, but the dialogue is an inconsistent blend of phonetic renderings of Scottish dialect and standard English that is both ridiculous and difficult to read. Numerous anachronisms (including slang such as “guy,” first names like Kelly and Shannon, and the presence of Earl Grey tea) further distract readers, keeping them from ever becoming completely immersed in Hellman’s story.
An imaginative but uneven tale about golf’s legendary roots.Pub Date: June 8, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 293
Publisher: LuckySports
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2017
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
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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