A fantasy tale full of lively characters and exciting twists.
A man wants only to return to his wife and son, but the sea is full of dangerous people and untold mysteries in Schlegel’s retelling of Homer’s Odyssey.
The Trojan War is finally over, and Otis Seehus can, at long last, return home to his beloved wife, Penelope, and his son, Mac, whom he hasn’t seen since he was a newborn. He sets off on a ship with two other men, Curly and Mowgli, hoping to arrive back at his home in Ithaca soon, but the journey doesn’t go as planned. The small crew encounters the fearsome, brutal Capt. James of the ship Jolly Roger. From there, a series of other unfortunate and often strange obstacles keeps Otis from his family for 14 long years. He encounters many foes, including the evil queen of Calypso Island and the legendary and deadly Sea Witch; meanwhile, in Ithaca, the castle is overrun by violent suitors, and Penelope takes up drinking to cope with the stress. Fifteen-year-old Mac has grown up without knowing his father and now seeks to find him. He escapes the castle to find the ship of the Lost Boys, led by Peter Pan. There he also meets Jinni, a magical man who seemingly knows more about the sea than anyone. This reworking of the Odysseyutilizes a varied range of fairy-tale characters as well as figures from more recent classic literature to tell this ancient story about one man’s quest for home. The work provides a sharp change from Schlegel’s later crime thriller, Junction (2015), which lacks this book’s referential manner, but it in no way disappoints, and it will satisfy its intended audience of fantasy fans. It’s an engaging but also quite rich adventure, in part because it doesn’t shy away from serious character development. In particular, Schlegel does well to transform well-known characters, moving them away from their origins to meet the demands of the narrative—as he does, for instance, with his adult version of Peter Pan—while still respecting their original essence.
A fantasy tale full of lively characters and exciting twists.Pub Date: April 30, 2021
ISBN: 979-8746042279
Page Count: 353
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.
A retelling of Pinocchio from Geppetto's point of view.
The novel purports to be the memoirs of Geppetto, a carpenter from the town of Collodi, written in the belly of a vast fish that has swallowed him. Fortunately for Geppetto, the fish has also engulfed a ship, and its supplies—fresh water, candles, hardtack, captain’s logbook, ink—are what keep the Swallowed Man going. (Collodi is, of course, the name of the author of the original Pinocchio.) A misfit whose loneliness is equaled only by his drive to make art, Geppetto scours his surroundings for supplies, crafting sculptures out of pieces of the ship’s wood, softened hardtack, mussel shells, and his own hair, half hoping and half fearing to create a companion once again that will come to life. He befriends a crab that lives all too briefly in his beard, then mourns when “she” dies. Alone in the dark, he broods over his past, reflecting on his strained relationship with his father and his harsh treatment of his own “son”—Pinocchio, the wooden puppet that somehow came to life. In true Carey fashion, the author illustrates the novel with his own images of his protagonist’s art: sketches of Pinocchio, of woodworking tools, of the women Geppetto loved; photos of driftwood, of tintypes, of a sculpted self-portrait with seaweed hair. For all its humor, the novel is dark and claustrophobic, and its true subject is the responsibilities of creators. Remembering the first time he heard of the sea monster that was to swallow him, Geppetto wonders if the monster is somehow connected to Pinocchio: “The unnatural child had so thrown the world off-balance that it must be righted at any cost, and perhaps the only thing with the power to right it was a gigantic sea monster, born—I began to suppose this—just after I cracked the world by making a wooden person.” Later, contemplating his self-portrait bust, Geppetto asks, “Monster of the deep. Am I, then, the monster? Do I nightmare myself?”
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18887-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Poignant and reflective, cementing Patchett’s stature as one of our finest novelists.
It’s time to harvest the cherries from their Michigan orchard, but the pandemic means that Joe Nelson; his wife, Lara; and their daughters, Emily, Maisie, and Nell, must pick all the fruit themselves.
To lighten the lengthy, grueling workdays, and prompted by the recent death of world-famous actor Peter Duke, the girls press Lara to tell them about her romance with Duke at Tom Lake, a summer stock company in Michigan, and her decision to give up acting after one big movie role. Lara’s reminiscences, peppered by feisty comments from her daughters and periodic appearances by her gentle, steadfast husband, provide the foundation for Patchett’s moving portrait of a woman looking back at a formative period in her life and sharing some—but only some—of it with her children. Duke flashes across her recollections as a wildly talented, nakedly ambitious, and extremely crazy young man clearly headed for stardom, but the real interest in this portion of the novel lies in Patchett’s delicate delineation of Lara’s dawning realization that, fine as she is as Emily in Our Town, she has a limited talent and lacks the drive that propels Duke and her friend and understudy Pallas. The fact that Pallas, who's Black, doesn’t get the break that Duke does is one strand in Patchett’s intricate and subtle thematic web, which also enfolds the nature of storytelling, the evolving dynamics of a family, and the complex interaction between destiny and choice. Lara’s daughters are standouts among the sharply dawn characterizations: once-volatile Emily, now settled down to be the heir apparent to the farm; no-nonsense veterinarian-in-training Maisie; and Nell, the aspiring actor and unerring observer who anticipates every turn in her mother’s tale. Patchett expertly handles her layered plot, embedding one charming revelation and one brutal (but in retrospect inevitable) betrayal into a dual narrative that deftly maintains readers’ interest in both the past and present action. These braided strands culminate in a denouement at once deeply sad and tenderly life-affirming.
Poignant and reflective, cementing Patchett’s stature as one of our finest novelists.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780063327528
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
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