Novak ably combines realism and the supernatural, even if the result is sometimes too preposterous even for suspenders of...
Feral children, the result of fertility treatments gone horribly awry, roam the streets of Manhattan in Novak’s hit-or-miss follow-up to Breed (2012).
The pseudonymous Novak (who's really Scott Spencer; Endless Love, 1979, etc.) continues the tale of the Twisden twins, Adam and Alice, now 13 and orphaned following their parents’ grisly suicides (equally grisly is the elder Twisdens’ penchant for cannibalism, thanks to a Slovenian doctor’s fertility regimen). Stepping into the vacant parental shoes is the twins’ aunt Cynthia, who jumps at the opportunity to be a mother. But family life is far from perfect as the trio returns to the Upper East Side mansion where Alex and Leslie Twisden raised their children and slowly went mad. The twins soon disappear, running off to join one of the numerous bands of wild children who, like Adam and Alice, are genetically mutated to various degrees following their parents’ fertility treatments. One of the children, who partially glows in the dark, is the mayor's son. The leader of the twins’ pack is Rodolfo, who, like most of his followers, speaks in an initially jarring (and eventually simply irritating) dialect—“You’s not to do” translates to “Don’t do that,” for example. The wild children are under constant threat of scientific poaching at the hands of thugs from bioengineering company Borman&Davis, which uses human specimens for research in an attempt to harness the children’s power. At home in the seemingly empty mansion, Cynthia finds herself skewing more mad than sane.
Novak ably combines realism and the supernatural, even if the result is sometimes too preposterous even for suspenders of disbelief.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-316-22800-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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