A diffident but ultimately entertaining exploration of a famous literary lacuna.
A debut historical novel fills a mysterious three-year gap in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.
As a young, Roma-looking orphan, Heathcliff is adopted by Old Earnshaw and taken to live with his family at their estate, Wuthering Heights. In this first section, Drum closely follows Brontë’s description of events: Heathcliff becomes nearly inseparable from Old Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine, but is abused and eventually forced into a servant’s role by his son, Hindley. Years pass, and one night Heathcliff overhears Cathy claiming that it would “degrade” her to marry him; distraught, he flees the estate and vows that he’ll make himself into a rich gentleman worthy of the woman he loves. From there, the book imagines what might have occurred over the next three years, which remain curiously unexplored in the classic novel. The author offers the possibility that Heathcliff finds work as a sailor in the Atlantic triangle trade, voyaging from the western coast of Africa to Jamaica and back to England. Along the way, Heathcliff experiences the rough conditions of a life at sea, the allures and hazards of exotic cultures, and the horrors of the slave trade. He witnesses the greed and malice of powerful men and stays true to his own values as a consequence. But upon his return to England, he preoccupies himself with exterior matters, hoping to transform into a fashionable society man. It’s a credit to the author that direct lines and scenes from Wuthering Heights fit seamlessly into the overall narrative. Each locale is vibrantly rendered, from the ship’s tight quarters to the sprawl and seduction of Victorian London. Heathcliff himself appears somewhat less vivid, partly due to the tale’s detached tone and its focus on adventure over interiority. In some ways, the book openly depicts brutality, as in an effective scene where slaves are branded. But it also shies away from hints of Heathcliff’s personal cruelty, instead envisioning him as blandly compassionate, naïve, and heroic. As a result, 19th- and 21st-century framings coexist in ways both successful and distracting.
A diffident but ultimately entertaining exploration of a famous literary lacuna.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9911857-7-1
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Burning Books Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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