by Charles A. Wells Jr. ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 29, 2011
This amalgamation of “distinctly frivolous” stories lacks a strong selling-point, but you get the feeling early and often...
Wells, a businessman from Middle America, presents his debut collection of short stories.
A financial advisor by day, Wells pens each of his vignettes like a cost-benefit analysis, leaving the now-informed reader to choose: buy in or not. In “Basic Training,” a gawky Wells leaves the halls of the Ivy League for the fields of Louisiana. Knowing he is never to face the trenches of Vietnam, Wells simply struggles to survive an attack from a backwoods ginger giant named “Red” and the scapegoating by an unfriendly drill sergeant. While Wells never loses the candor that earned him these consequences, he develops an apology reflex that absolves him of blame in the stories that follow. Moments like in “Coast to Coast,” however—where his youthful irreverence triumphs—make for deadpan gold: a father-son rescue mission of a baby lamb is celebrated with a lamb dinner. Similarly, Wells abandons his cautious, cumbersome reference to a transgender character as “he/she” for a more reckless, though cringe-worthy, character sketch: “striking from a distance…with a voice like Robert Mitchum’s in a beef commercial.” The reader can’t help but cheer on such humorous interludes once arriving at narratives like “Bowling Green,” which has all the levity of a legal brief. Having ignored the subtextual history of slavery and segregation in this piece, Wells adds the section “Race”—a sort of post-script apology for having painted a Pleasantville with Marges and Earls, Minnies and Charlies and no mention of this substantive theme. Yet again, Wells is forgiven of his grave missteps in stories like “Three Funerals” where the punch-line is a whimsical, albeit purposeless, crafting of a country song. But Wells never has the chance to beg forgiveness for the blunder in his final and namesake story, “Nude Nuns”; in the span of five pages, Wells manages to speak past the foot in his mouth, flagging lesbians by their footwear and defining a hot tub as a “conversation pit with tits.”
This amalgamation of “distinctly frivolous” stories lacks a strong selling-point, but you get the feeling early and often that Wells doesn’t seem to much care whether he makes the sale so long as he gets to make the pitch.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-1450794343
Page Count: 258
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
33
Our Verdict
GET IT
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2015
Kirkus Prize
winner
National Book Award Finalist
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Harper Lee
BOOK REVIEW
by Harper Lee
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.