Some of the material might have generated laughs as a five-minute Saturday Night Life “wild and crazy guys” sketch, but it...
Stylistic bravura can’t sustain interest in this overextended narrative with an underdeveloped plot.
Consider this the sophomore slump for the Pierre, whose debut novel, Vernon God Little (2003), won Britain’s Man Booker Prize despite polarized critical response. Here, Pierre continues to display a subversive delight in the possibilities of language (from titillation to disgust), but the corrosive vitality of its dialogue is about all this story has going for it. There are two plots, with thousands of miles between them, which the reader hopes will attain greater significance once they inevitably converge. Against a backdrop of terrorism in London, one story concerns the first successful surgical separation of conjoined twins, 33-year-old brothers named Bunny and Blair (not the most subtle of political references). Bunny is the brains of the two (and never thinks about sex), while Blair is the life force (who thinks of nothing but sex). If only one can survive, there’s some question as to which is the host and which is the parasite. The second plot features the titular Ludmila, trying to escape with her boyfriend from the war-torn Caucasus. Her major assets are her breasts (though this isn’t the word Pierre’s characters use) and her rudimentary command of English. After her incestuous grandfather dies while attempting to rape her, leaving her family in dire financial straits, she reluctantly becomes involved in a Russian mail-order-bride racket, thus sparking a visit to Russia by Blair (and Bunny). Perhaps the “Broken English” of the title refers to the twins as well as to Ludmila’s language skills. Perhaps not. Nothing else in this stick-figured, incongruously plotted, gratuitously indulgent novel seems to mean much, so why should that? If this is meant to be a send-up of globalization (or anything else), it misses the mark.
Some of the material might have generated laughs as a five-minute Saturday Night Life “wild and crazy guys” sketch, but it quickly wears thin as a novel.Pub Date: May 8, 2006
ISBN: 0-393-06237-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Refreshingly filled with love rather than sex, this coming-of-age novel examines the human cost of political repression.
A star-crossed romance captures the turmoil of pre-revolutionary Iran in Seraji’s debut.
From the rooftops of Tehran in 1973, life looks pretty good to 17-year-old Pasha Shahed and his friend Ahmed. They’re bright, funny and good-looking; they’re going to graduate from high school in a year; and they’re in love with a couple of the neighborhood girls. But all is not idyllic. At first the girls scarcely know the boys are alive, and one of them, Zari, is engaged to Doctor—not actually a doctor but an exceptionally gifted and politically committed young Iranian. In this neighborhood, the Shah is a subject of contempt rather than veneration, and residents fear SAVAK, the state’s secret police force, which operates without any restraint. Pasha, the novel’s narrator and prime dreamer, focuses on two key periods in his life: the summer and fall of 1973, when his life is going rather well, and the winter of 1974, when he’s incarcerated in a grim psychiatric hospital. Among the traumatic events he relates are the sudden arrest, imprisonment and presumed execution of Doctor. Pasha feels terrible because he fears he might have inadvertently been responsible for SAVAK having located Doctor’s hiding place; he also feels guilty because he’s always been in love with Zari. She makes a dramatic political statement, setting herself on fire and sending Pasha into emotional turmoil. He is both devastated and further worried when the irrepressible Ahmed also seems to come under suspicion for political activity. Pasha turns bitterly against religion, raising the question of God’s existence in a world in which the bad guys seem so obviously in the ascendant. Yet the badly scarred Zari assures him, “Things will change—they always do.”
Refreshingly filled with love rather than sex, this coming-of-age novel examines the human cost of political repression.Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-451-22681-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2009
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...
Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga (Firefly Lane, 2008, etc.).
At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters and understanding of family dynamics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008
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