McKinney-Whetstone (Tumbling, 1996) scores big on mood and language, less on plot and character. A trio of Philadelphia-born sisters is the focus of this solid if uninspired second novel: Shern, Victoria, and Bliss are born to loving, well-meaning parents, but the forces of circumstance cause their lives to change drastically one day in 1965. Their mother, the light-skinned, lighthearted Clarise, and their father, the dark-skinned, dashing Finch, have a charmed marriageuntil Finch's catering business hits rocky waters, and dire financial need causes him to go out on a fateful crabbing trip. An inexperienced boater, he drowns in a sudden storm, thinking, as he dies, of Clarise and the girls. Clarise, in mourning, is prescribed Valium; no one knows that she's allergic to the drug, and so when she collapses it's assumed that she's attempted suicide by overdose and is having a breakdown caused by her husband's death. As a result, Clarise is institutionalized and the girls are assigned to foster care. They end up living with the hard-edged Mae, a gambler, and her neglected daughter Ramona, in a blue-collar neighborhood where everything is foreign to them. Although Mae is decent to Shern, Victoria, and Bliss, she has some serious problems of her own, and her abusive behavior toward Ramona strains credibility, even though Ramona herself is not the most lovable of characters. In fact, Ramona's interactions with her boyfriend and her boyfriend's father are among the more disturbing elements in the story. Meanwhile, Clarise survives her ordeal in the asylum, but when she gets out, she can't at first find her daughters. It takes time, persistence, and luck, but eventually the family is reunited, and even Mae and Ramona seem moved to try to rebuild their own relationship. A satisfying end makes up, somewhat, for a convoluted storyline. McKinney-Whetstone's material this time, though, is not nearly as strong as her voice. (Author Tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 4, 1998
ISBN: 0-688-14994-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1998
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
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