A fantasy tale with an ingenious and memorable premise.
In Riley’s (The Great Deflategate Conspiracy, 2015) novella, a 21st-century movie finds its way onto a theater screen in small-town 1950s New England.
Projectionist Shep Farrell and manager Leo D’Aleo are preparing for another mundane day of work at the Strand Theater in the all-white town of Enfield, Connecticut, when something extraordinary happens. As Shep is preparing to screen what he believes to be Creature from the Black Lagoon, the film mysteriously threads itself. The theater staff is astonished to discover, when the movie plays, that it’s unlike anything they’ve witnessed before—because it’s the 2018 superhero film Black Panther. Also alarming is the fact that the projector refuses to stop running even after Leo and Shep cut the power. In 1954, the film—which racist Leo describes as “a bunch of half naked Coloreds flying through space and shooting up white people”—causes a significant stir, and white crowds flock to the uncanny spectacle. Word soon reaches the White House; Vice President Richard Nixon attends a screening, and when he finds that the film can’t be stopped, he deems Black Panther a national security threat. The dialogue in Riley’s deeply imaginative novella vividly captures the politics of paranoia of 1950s America. For example, Nixon’s report to President Dwight Eisenhower states: “it appears to me as if [Marcus] Garvey directed this motion picture from the grave.” Meanwhile, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover accuses the “agitator Paul Robeson” of being behind the film simply because the performer once lived in Enfield. Riley also draws a damning caricature of the Eisenhower administration and the era’s casual racism. For instance, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles says that he’s alarmed by a Black Panther character’s “Africanized hair,” stating: “What are we to make of that Alfalfa hair-do?” The political figures are complex, conniving, and well-rounded, but Riley pays significantly less attention to his protagonist, Shep, who feels insufficiently fleshed out. However, this is a minor criticism of a daringly inventive novella that charts society’s ongoing struggle with racial bigotry and the role of cinema in challenging such prejudice.
A fantasy tale with an ingenious and memorable premise.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-941913-09-6
Page Count: 141
Publisher: The Nobby Works
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 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.
