An illuminating cross section of American society.
A sprawling satire on contemporary middle-American life.
One would be hard-pressed to find any aspect of Daneagle’s first novel that doesn’t underscore his central theme on the excesses of American living. From the pen-and-ink drawings by illustrator Cocinero, to the “Simple Melodies” of songs mentioned in the text then collected in the epilogue, to the two-column newspaper-like setting of the entire narrative, Daneagle drives home the idea that, especially when it comes to the underbelly of American life, the world really is too much with us. Though the strongly ecological and rabidly liberal-minded polemics presented throughout the book may alienate some readers, especially those who fail to appreciate the tone of extended, harshly derogatory passages on women (aka The Penis Dialogues), at the novel’s core sits the interesting story of a dozen inmates incarcerated together in one of the country’s mega-expensive, million-prisoner penitentiaries dubbed “Two Five,” denoting in brief the institution’s zip code. Entire chapters are devoted not only to detailed descriptions of the crimes that landed each of these more or less unsavory men and their keepers in jail, but some protracted histories of preceding generations of that character’s family. In cases such as José Lupino, a drug lord of staggering wealth and power, such background provides a rounded context as to why he finds incarceration so intolerable, but with other characters, like bootlegger J.B. Hunt, such tangential personal histories tend to read more like filler. Daneagle excels in exposing the consequences of years of hard living, particularly in backwoods Appalachia, where rampant poverty, racism and sexism borne of poor education and seemingly insurmountable classism manifest themselves in the “Two Five” characters society seeks to isolate and eliminate. If one can outlast the multiple diversionary tales within the main story here, the point’s well taken.
An illuminating cross section of American society.Pub Date: March 15, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9798184-0-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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
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