A disturbing but unflinching look at youthful disquiet.
A troubled teen menaces his sleepy town by deliberately starting major fires.
Zeke Titcomb is an awkward, portly 15-year-old pulverized under the weight of social alienation. His father, Eben, is tyrannically boorish and abusive, and his mother, Peggy, is interminably sheepish in the face of his dominance. His sister, Michelle, both beautiful and smart, rebels against Eben through wanton promiscuity. Zeke’s both tortured and ignored by his peers. He is painfully private, concealing his emotions as they simmer over time into a roiling boil. He decides to set his own school on fire and delights in the feeling of power the act of destruction brings him. Zeke makes arson attempts on other schools and a warehouse and then turns his attention to private residences, until he finally burns down his own home. Chaldea, Maine—a small, failed paper-mill town—is yanked out of its peaceful slumber by Zeke’s reign of terror. Word gets out that Chaldea is essentially under siege, and a reporter from the Boston Globe visits to investigate. Zeke glories in the combination of anonymous cunning and empowerment he experiences: “I would never threaten anyone. How can I? I’m invisible.” Eventually, Zeke is apprehended by the authorities, who are chilled to the bone by his steely remove. A court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Elizabeth Proctor, struggles to get Zeke to open up, and finally he finds his voice while writing in a journal. Proctor enlists the aid of two figures Zeke admires, one a librarian and the other an English teacher. Will Zeke finally allow a modest portal into his distempered mind? Cappella (Gobbo: A Solitaire’s Opera, 2005, etc.) leaps back and forth from the unfolding drama to Zeke’s journal entries, poignantly depicting the adolescent rage that snowballs within him. Zeke’s angst regarding his sister is especially complex and affecting: he’s embarrassed by her exploits, hurt they’re not closer, worried she’s squandering her talents, and sadly reminded by her of his own failure with the opposite sex. The author intelligently resists any neatly delivered conclusions—this is a thoughtful, serious, but less than inspirational tale that realistically captures the chaos of teen disaffectedness.
A disturbing but unflinching look at youthful disquiet.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-944393-05-2
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Piscataqua Press
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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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