Cronenberg's literary debut is not for everyone, but those who enjoyed eXistenZ and Naked Lunch will find much to like here.
In film director Cronenberg's first novel, an odd (to say the least) Parisian couple—Naomi, a tabloid reporter who uses spying techniques, and Nathan, a photojournalist who shoots controversial medical procedures—have extreme sexual adventures while competing with each other for the ultimate scoop.
Naomi is investigating the disappearance of a famous French philosopher, Aristide Arosteguy, who is suspected of killing his wife, Célestine—and consuming chunks of her. She tracks him down to Japan, where she trades sex for his confessions—and much more. Her lover, Nathan, contracts a rare sexually transmitted disease after coupling with the cancerous patient of a discredited Hungarian surgeon. He goes to Toronto to meet the researcher his disease was named after. He has strange encounters with the researcher's daughter. Unsettling surprises are in store for everyone. Cronenberg's fascination with human flesh and its relationship to and interaction with technology—in this case, a full regalia of laptops, cellphones, iPads and cameras—will be familiar to those who have seen his films. The rampant couplings, as you might guess, are anything but titillating. But Cronenberg, who has never made what could be called a comedy, delivers one here in detailing his hapless characters' misadventures. Stripped of their obsessions and digital equipment, Naomi and Nathan are empty vessels. Like many of us, they've spent so much time in an artificial world that it's eaten away at the meaning in their lives.
Cronenberg's literary debut is not for everyone, but those who enjoyed eXistenZ and Naked Lunch will find much to like here.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4165-9613-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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
A new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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