Chase makes this out-of-left-field story work brilliantly; a funny and sweet yet seriously topical novel.
The emotional and moral torments of a teddy bear drive this surprisingly effective allegory of our terror-stricken times.
This first novel by Chase, author of the 1995 memoir The Hurry-Up Song, opens as if it were a parody of TV crime dramas, with a teddy bear named Winkie arrested by federal agents under charges of performing acts of Unabomber-like domestic terrorism. (The book even includes a mug shot, among other photos.) But this wacky setup is girded by sober, elegant writing that neatly balances both political and domestic themes—from our broken criminal-justice system to little girls pining for violins, Winkie’s seen it all. First named Marie when she was bought in the 1920s at a Chicago department store, Winkie observed and supported her owner, Ruth, as she grew up in a strict Christian Scientist household; Winkie was later passed down through Ruth’s children and helped the youngest, Cliff, weather a move to New Orleans and a host of childhood insecurities. With Cliff grown up, the abandoned Winkie strikes out on her own, beginning a tender, if odd, domestic life before her wrongful arrest. The courtroom scenes are wildly, brilliantly comic—Winkie is charged with a list of felonies (including “Corrupting the youth of Athens”) that takes more than five hours to read, and he’s saddled with a hapless, stammering lawyer, the appropriately named Charles Unwin. But Chase isn’t just being cute here. Tinkering with the idea that a teddy bear is a repository for all our insecurities, he throws even our largest concerns at him: love, God, death, patriotism, racism, sexual identity and what it means to be human (or in Winkie’s case, human-like). Winkie’s clearly meant to speak to our fears about innocent “detainees” and “military tribunals” becoming kangaroo courts, but the author is never didactic on this point; at heart, the book is an argument for openness and inner strength on every imaginable front.
Chase makes this out-of-left-field story work brilliantly; a funny and sweet yet seriously topical novel.Pub Date: July 10, 2006
ISBN: 0-8021-1830-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
