The novel ends with a promise of a sequel that has the potential to be a more gripping read than this debut.
In gang-ridden, monster-infested multicultural Dalston, unlikely allies Roshan and Lolly must fight the most sinister force of all: the property developers gentrifying East London.
After six months behind bars, all British-Indian Roshan wants to do is stay out of trouble—until his best friend, Kay, is kidnapped by a gang working for businessman Conrad Vess. Kay is dating Vess’ stepdaughter, Lolly, a pink-haired white girl and self-described “bad bitch” who rides a monster named Neana. Neana is one of a series of monsters that appeared in the holes dug by developers gentrifying the neighborhood of Dalston—developers like Vess. Although there is no love lost between Roshan and Lolly, they form an uneasy friendship as they search for Kay and, in the process, uncover the neighborhood’s most sinister secrets. Peopled with stylized, even grotesque character renderings, Mann’s vibrant panels perfectly capture the tensions fueling the class battle simmering beneath the narrative. He adeptly centers the story on moments in the lives of characters of color, writing Roshan’s father’s dialogue in the Punjabi alphabet and including an oracle who wears hijab. The tropes, however, feel trite, such as an opening subplot in which businessmen feed humans to monsters for sport. In the end, the familiarity of the plot elements undercuts the tension created by the brilliant illustrations and complex, well-voiced characters.
The novel ends with a promise of a sequel that has the potential to be a more gripping read than this debut. (Graphic horror. 14-adult)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-910620-35-9
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Nobrow Ltd.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
Desani, born in Kenya, educated in India and currently a professor at the University of Texas, offers his first book in some 40 years: 23 stories and fables, along with a dramatic prose poem, that range from bleakness to ironic comedy and from supernatural tales to highly mannered satires. The prose poem—which tells the story of ``Hali,'' who loves Rooh, whose death plunges Hali into grief and a mystical journey— is most noteworthy as an example of private mythology turned into accessible invocation. The supernatural element in many of the other fictions is strong: ``The Valley of Lions,'' for example, is short and visionary; ``Mephisto's Daughter'' concerns a narrator who has access to ``Old Ugly's daughter''; and ``The Lama Arupa'' follows the holy man of the title through ``several states of consciousness'' after his death until he returns as a chicken. ``The Merchant of Kisingarh'' is told by a deceased merchant speaking through his son, a sometime medium. These pieces manage to be both wry and penetrating by turns, while ``The Last Long Letter''—an epistolary tale about a daughter sent away to meet her future groom, a boy who turns out to be visionary—is consistently bittersweet. ``A Border Incident,'' more traditional, tells of a man punished (mildly) for deserting his post to save a boy's life. Desani also offers a mock lecture (``Rudyard Kipling's Evaluation of His Own Mother'') on one of Kipling's more ludicrous compositions, and he closes with the phantasmagoric ``The Mandatory Interview of the Dean''—a madcap satire of bureaucracy and officiousness offered up in a style that is rich and frothily indulgent. A varied collection, impressive in its use of religious and personal mythology—and lushly descriptive of a sensibility and a culture that is part English, part Indian, and uniquely Desani's own.
Pub Date: May 24, 1991
ISBN: 0-929701-12-7
Page Count: 207
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991
Williams's fifth novel (Slow Dance in Autumn, etc.)—a bittersweet comedy about a man who searches for the woman he loved in the Sixties—is sometimes tedious, but its familiar mix of southern argot and good-ole-boy humor, spiced this time with some religious parody, can also be clever and touching. Ford Clayton is a North Carolina music professor suffering from midlife crisis: wife Jill moves to Macon after he has an affair, and his opera, based on East of Eden, is getting nowhere. Then he sees Camille Malone, the woman he worshipped, in a documentary about the homeless; and, once the story kicks into gear (it takes a while), Ford takes off with cousin Clarence (``I'll just be like your private preacher or something''), who was ``released from prison and washed in the Blood of the Lamb at the same time,'' for Myrtle Beach, where Ford arranges to meet Camille. Interwoven are flashbacks to Ford's childhood (``First and always, there was music'') and to his life with Camille. She was a whiz at almost everything from classical piano to Sixties lit-chat; founded ``The Malone Society'' for ``Philosophico-Musico-Politico Discussion''; organized antiwar rallies; and then found religion. At Myrtle Beach, Camille—still crazy but no bag-lady—founds a new religion with Clarence and later follows Ford back to North Carolina (he becomes reconciled with his wife) to kick off ``The Test and the Text'' (their religion) with a beer rally. It flops— and Camille returns to New York while Ford sets Yeats's ``Lake Isle of Innisfree'' to music, finally achieving something, if only in a minor key. The new religion (``The Book of Mister James Durante,'' ``The Book of Baseball Statistics'') is a lot of fun, and the humor is often right-on: altogether, then, a successful version of the Sixties Novel, about people who yearn to be who they once were but settle for what they have.
Pub Date: May 15, 1991
ISBN: 1-56145-024-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991
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