Himes's first novel, finished after his release from prison in 1937, wasn't published until 1952, and then in much altered form, as Cast the First Stone. In this original version (the first hardcover in the Old School Books imprint), Himes reveals the dark and twisted reality of life behind bars long before Genet or Eddie Bunker. The story now also includes the origin of the hero's life in crime. From as far back as he can remember, Jimmy Monroe couldn't satisfy an inner restlessness. With his preacher father and snobby mother, he moved throughout the South and Midwest, along the way managing accidentally to blind his younger brother and get expelled from a number of schools. An on-the-job accident leads to a nice settlement, which finances his short time at college, where he majors in carousing and is soon thrown out. His taste for the streets, cheap women, and easy thrills takes him to Chicago and the larceny that gets him 20 years hard labor. The bulk of the narrative chronicles the day-to-day horrors of prison in the '30s- -corrupt guards, virulent racism, casual violence, and bizarre courting rituals between men starved for affection and sex. Jimmy's depression sinks to its lowest after a prison fire, described with a lyric intensity, releases a jailhouse anarchy that ends only with a brutal crackdown. Jimmy's few pleasures evaporate until a friendly guard allows gambling to resume and organizes a softball team. Much of the story concentrates on the ``girl-boy'' culture behind bars, and Jimmy, with the beautiful young Rico, indulges in a romance of ``fantasy and frenzy and delirium.'' Just as the pair's dangerous friendship threatens Jimmy's future in jail, he's transferred to farm duty, the last step before parole. Jimmy's sexual confusion, and his moment of ``blackness'' during the fire, suggest the course of his own redemption, which finds ultimate expression in his first attempts as a writer. Himes captures it all in his inimitable, far from pulpy, prose. A revelation for Himes fans.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-393-04577-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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