Should Davey come out to his mother? That's the only issue in this tedious gay novel, which is stuck uncomfortably somewhere between the old-fashioned reticence of Forster's Maurice and the contemporary ambiance of an Armistead Maupin. A first US publication for this prolific Canadian novelist. The first third of this awkwardly structured novel—a mess of letters, diary entries, and narrative—covers the Bryants' family life in England during 1916-45 from the viewpoints of Davey and his strong-willed mother, Isabella. The latter was a professional working woman who then married a Cornish farmer and bore him three sons; Davey, her favorite, is a precocious chatterbox. Isabella will later drive a London ambulance during WW II and become friends with a Charlotte Churchfield. The two women are ``innocent Sapphists'' who ``do everything together except the bed thing.'' By now, Davey is a young sailor who's been arrested for importuning; though both his parents know of the incident, it's never discussed. Demobbed, Davey meets his first boyfriend and they vacation in Paris, where Davey finds a sugar-daddy who persuades him to study at the Sorbonne. Mama doesn't like it, but once again Anglo-Saxon attitudes prevail, and Davey's new relationship goes undiscussed. A year later, the smug freeloader falls in love with Ken, an American student, and emigrates to the States without taking leave of his doting, check-writing mother. Forward to San Francisco, 1960. Davey, now a journalist and still Ken's lover, is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Isabella, on a round-the-world cruise with Charlotte. How will she react to his gay circle? All goes swimmingly: there's a discreet dinner-party toast ``to the nature of things,'' and Davey realizes that being only half out of the closet suits him just fine. A tempest in a teapot, then, for a quite unlikable guy.
Pub Date: Aug. 20, 1993
ISBN: 0-00-647399-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1993
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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