Second-novelist O'Brien (The Spirit of the Hills, 1988) offers a high plains melodrama in which finely seen landscape—plus the interaction of character with place—more than makes up for some programmatic plotting. Larry Sorensen, bank president in Harney, South Dakota, is approached by a mining company that discovers gold near the Badlands. Sorensen moves to buy up the four ranches—one owned by Cleve Miller, who, repulsed by the modern, greedy world, has developed a conspiracy theory involving Zionism. The story then fills us in on the lives of the other three ranchers: Ross Brady, in his mid-30s, who deserted the Vietnam-era Army and came to South Dakota for ``the bigness, the stark beauty,'' even though his Jewish wife Linda left him for California. (Brother-in-law Stewart, however, the wild card in the deck, is still around.) Elizabeth Janis, of Dakota lineage, has inherited another ranch from its former owner, now paralyzed; she and Stewart get it on, and Stewart raises Cleve's ire by paying off Janis's mortgage. Tuffy Martinez, the fourth rancher, leases out his land and spends most of his time drunk. Author O'Brien treats us to nicely textured instances of brandings, blizzards, and ranching ups and downs before letting Cleve finish off the plot. Cleve watches Tippy die after an accident, then beats up Stewart and kidnaps him. Sorensen grapples with Cleve, who shoots him, whereupon Ross blows Cleve away. For the most part, then, things work out for the best, with the land being the novel's real protagonist. O'Brien once again goes for the jugular with too much violence, but his love of the land, along with his intimate knowledge of it, makes for a book that belongs on the shelf of every fan of serious western literature.
Pub Date: June 17, 1991
ISBN: 0-87113-441-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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