THE SHROUD OF THE THWACKER

Name: THE SHROUD OF THE THWACKER
Author: Chris Elliott
ISBN: 1-4013-5245-6

by Chris Elliott ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 5, 2005

If those who devour such novels are willing to laugh at them, Elliott might be a bigger hit on bookshelves than he’s been...

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The mysteries of history—and the rash of bestselling novels they’ve spawned—inspire this slapstick satire that is more fun than the sum of its clichés.

While less literary than Steve Martin, comedian-actor-writer Elliott (star of TV’s Get a Life and the film Cabin Boy) offers more than the recycled monologue bits of most comedians-turned-authors. The patron saint of Elliott’s satiric sensibility here might well be Mel Brooks, for Elliott shows the same sort of gleeful relish in skewering the absurdities of the historical crime thriller genre that Brooks has in his big-screen parodies. After reading Elliott’s account of New York’s little-known 19th-century serial killer—Jack the Jolly Thwacker—it will be all the tougher to swallow the quasi-historical tone of The Historian, The Alienist, even The Da Vinci Code without gagging. Among those involved in the pursuit of Jolly Jack, who disembowels prostitutes after “thwacking” them, are a reporter named Liz Smith, a pre-presidential, genitally pierced and relentlessly flatulent Teddy Roosevelt and the time-traveling author himself. Along the way, they encounter the nefarious (and lisping) Boss Tweed, the mysterious Mummers and a marauding street gang of toddlers. The narrative leaps between present and past, with the author alternating between advancing the plot and addressing the reader, reinforcing his persona as a hapless buffoon in the process. The more convoluted the conspiracy surrounding the serial murders becomes, the more absurd the contrivances of this sort of historical fiction seem: According to 19th-century history as rewritten by Elliott, a history in which a calculating Yoko Ono and a perennially wrinkled Don Imus play roles, it was New York that actually sparked the Great Chicago Fire.

If those who devour such novels are willing to laugh at them, Elliott might be a bigger hit on bookshelves than he’s been onscreen.

Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2005

ISBN: 1-4013-5245-6

Page Count: 368

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GUY UNDER THE SHEETS
by Chris Elliott

- BOOK REVIEW
INTO HOT AIR
by Chris Elliott & illustrated by Amy Elliott Andersen

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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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.