Amusing, but those looking for accessible political satire will find this to be an esoteric and mostly dissatisfying work.
Taylor (Ghostly Demarcations, 2019, etc.) riffs on the current political landscape in this madcap novel in verse.
The shades in Hades aren’t pleased with the way things are going on Earth, so they elect to send one of the dead back to bring peace to the living. Diogenes, the Cynic philosopher from ancient Greece, nominates Victoria Woodhull, the late-19th-century American suffragette, promoter of free love, and one-time candidate for president of the United States. Victoria reluctantly accepts the assignment and is promptly teleported to—of all places—a municipal trash can in Birmingham, Alabama. She quickly befriends Detective Alonzo “Lonz” Rankin, a Louisiana Creole man currently working undercover. Diogenes arrives to help out as well—bringing with him a magic lantern that reveals the honesty in humans—but he feels the mission is endangered by the presence of another emissary: J. Edgar Hoover, sent up by Lord Hades himself. Victoria begins recruiting “Furies”—young free-love acolytes from among the local teens—while Hoover hooks up with the predatory Judge Roy Bean Too, a right-winger who wishes to erect monuments to the Ten Commandments in every Alabama town. As Hoover and Judge Roy launch their political revolution, Diogenes, Victoria, and Alonzo, along with an assortment of odd allies, attempt to restore some measure of reason to a country that is clearly in much worse shape than they thought. Can Victoria truly bring peace to this world? Will Diogenes’ lantern ever shine on an honest human? Will Hot Dog Rita ever get her hot dog franchise? Writing in a mock-epic light verse, Taylor tells his tale with tongue firmly in cheek, even beginning it with a rebuttal to the predicted critiques of self-serious poets: “Defaming poesy’s tongue to crack slim jokes, / ignoring their low tragic. Impolitic, puerile, / he’d used honeyed meter, sweet rhyme to stoke / their pimple moans high, ignite views worthwhile, // attain a laugh just now and then. Such was his style.” With its clever parodies of recognizable figures (Attorney General Bereft Sessions) and laugh-out-loud screwball sensibility, the novel summons to mind public entertainment of previous eras, particularly the comedies of ancient Greece and Rome. For a modern audience, however, this feels like inside baseball. In addition to recognizing all the references, one needs to have a high tolerance for rhyming verse and antiquated syntax. The plot is a bit too silly to inspire investment, and the 150-page poem is a bit too long to hold the reader’s interest. (Something that could have been read in one sitting would have been ideal.) The characters are all quite broad, and Rankin, who speaks in a patois and talks a lot about Voodoo, borders on offensive caricature. One gets the sense that Taylor recognizes that this is a work of fairly limited appeal—he seems to be writing primarily for himself and enjoying every minute of it.
Amusing, but those looking for accessible political satire will find this to be an esoteric and mostly dissatisfying work.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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