Provocative and beautifully told—a breakout novel for Maine.
Maine’s superb third novel continues his sly examination of the Old Testament, this time delineating the story of Samson and Dalila.
The Preservationist (2004) and Fallen (2005) stand as far more than jaunty, modern retellings (of Noah and the Ark and Adam and Eve, respectively), and this tale, too, offers a dark, thought-provoking account of the Bible’s great warrior and judge. As Samson begins his narrative, he is already imprisoned by the Philistines, blind and chained, his hair shorn and his strength gone. All he has left is his tale, and this he spreads out before the reader in all its bloody, bawdy glory. At Samson’s birth (foretold by an angel who issues the vital warning that he must never drink wine, touch a dead body or cut his hair), the newborn sits up between his mother’s legs and crushes a rock in his tiny fist. His size and strength are Herculean, and he has been sent by God to deliver his people from heathens. Samson, not the wisest of fellows, takes these words literally, killing Philistines and Canaanites, razing their crops and villages, wreaking murderous havoc whenever his God (though more often he himself) has been dishonored. The central episodes of the novel come directly from the Bible—he tears apart a lion with his bare hands (frightening his parents with his violence), kills 30 men at his wedding feast because of a riddle gone wrong, kills thousands with the jawbone of an ass in a slaughter that leaves him knee-deep in body parts. Then there’s sexy Dalila, a warrior of another kind, to whom Samson loses his power and heart. Maine contemporizes these mythic tales and questions the kind of zealot who delights in killing for God, the kind of man who denies humanity to his victims. Samson speaks of the strange buzzing he hears when he kills so righteously and the speed and strength given to him by God to murder. It is chilling indeed when the line between hero and serial killer is blurred.
Provocative and beautifully told—a breakout novel for Maine.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-35339-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.
Christian-fiction writer Martin (The Dead Don’t Dance, not reviewed) chronicles the personal tragedy of a Georgia heart surgeon.
Five years ago in Atlanta, Reese could not save his beloved wife Emma from heart failure, even though the Harvard-trained surgeon became a physician so that he could find a way to fix his childhood sweetheart’s congenitally faulty ticker. He renounced practicing medicine after her death and now lives in quiet anonymity as a boat mechanic on Lake Burton. Across the lake is Emma’s brother Charlie, who was rendered blind on the same desperate night that Reese fought to revive his wife on their kitchen floor. When Reese helps save the life of a seven-year-old local girl named Annie, who turns out to have irreparable heart damage, he is compassionately drawn into her case. He also grows close to Annie’s attractive Aunt Cindy and gradually comes to recognize that the family needs his expertise as a transplant surgeon. Martin displays some impressive knowledge about medical practice and the workings of the heart, but his Christian message is not exactly subtle. “If anything in this universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart,” Reese notes of his medical studies. Emma’s letters (kept in a bank vault) quote Bible verse; Charlie elucidates stories of Jesus’ miracles for young Annie; even the napkins at the local bar, The Well, carry passages from the Gospel of John for the benefit of the biker clientele. Moreover, Martin relentlessly hammers home his sentimentality with nature-specific metaphors involving mating cardinals and crying crickets. (Annie sells crickets as well as lemonade to raise money for her heart surgery.) Reese’s habitual muttering of worldly slogans from Milton and Shakespeare (“I am ashes where once I was fire”) doesn’t much cut the cloying piety, and an over-the-top surgical save leaves the reader feeling positively bruised.
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 1-5955-4054-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: WestBow/Thomas Nelson
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
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