He kicks the rock of reality, teases out the connectedness of things, and leaves us in awe.
Working at the top of his form, DeLillo draws on his previous novels (Mao II, 1991; Libra, 1988, etc.) in shaping his most ambitious work yet, a grand Whitmanesque epic of postwar American life—a brainy, streetwise, and lyrical underground history of our times, full of menace and miracles, and humming with the bop and crackle of postmodern life.
DeLillo's bottom-up chronicle is also the history of garbage, from a rubble-strewn lot in the Bronx to nuclear waste dumps in the Southwest. And the true-blue American who spans these landscapes is one Nick Shay, now an executive with a waste-management firm, once a j.d. on the not-so-mean streets, where his father kept book and his mother worried her rosary for her two boys, the other a chess prodigy who later lends his mathematical genius to the weapons industry. From the '50s on, DeLillo's always accessible narrative is also the history of a baseball, the one that was the "Shot Heard Round the World," Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run in 1951. The fate of the actual ball, a relic of spiritual significance, seemingly lost, is also a lesson in enterprise. Snagged by a young black kid from Harlem, who identifies with Thomson's Homeric homer, the ball quickly becomes an object of commerce, purloined by the boy's desperate father. Eventually, Nick acquires it, but for him it more properly commemorates failure: Branca's losing pitch. Beyond garbage and baseball, DeLillo surveys the Cold War years with a satirist's eye for meaningful detail and a linguist's ear for existential patter. Sweeping in scope and design, incorporating such diverse figures as Lenny Bruce and J. Edgar Hoover, DeLillo's masterpiece shouts against the times in the language of the times: postmodernism against itself.
He kicks the rock of reality, teases out the connectedness of things, and leaves us in awe.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-84269-6
Page Count: 832
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997
Period details and charm abound in a mystery that packs some real surprises.
Who killed the milkman?
Unlike other companies that keep cows in crowded and unhealthy conditions right in New York City and add things like chalk and plaster to make their milk look better, Clarence Pritchard’s milk processing firm delivers pasteurized, unadulterated milk from upstate farms. The Pritchards’ daughter, Theda, is married to Nelson Ellsworth, whose parents are neighbors of detectives Sarah and Frank Malloy (Murder on Union Square, 2018, etc.). Before they attend a dinner party at the Ellsworths’ home, the Malloys are warned that Pritchard is seriously nettled that the upcoming year of 1900 will not be celebrated as the turn of the century. When Pritchard’s body is found strangled on the first day of the new year (though not the first of the new century) after he’s spent the night pestering people about his theory, it’s clear that someone’s paid off the police to ignore the case. Theda demands an investigation by Malloy and his partner, Gino Donatelli, both of whom were New York police officers before Frank’s sudden wealth encouraged him to open a private investigation agency. Sarah, a former midwife from a society family, subsidizes a home for unwed mothers whose recent clients include Jocelyn Vane. Because Jocelyn’s wealthy parents won’t let her keep her child, Sarah hatches a plot to marry her to Black Jack Robinson, a handsome, wealthy, cultured criminal with aspirations to join society. Pritchard’s murder is still unsolved when his son, Harvey, is also strangled. Malloy discovers that Mrs. Pritchard had a longtime lover who poses as a family friend and that Harvey’s gambling addiction forced his father to allow someone to use their milk delivery wagons to move stolen goods. Since both deaths may be connected to deeper criminal enterprises, Malloy must be cautious in his investigation and rely on help from Robinson if he’s not to become the next victim.
Period details and charm abound in a mystery that packs some real surprises.Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-58663-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
A budding romance and an age-old motive combine in a heartwarming cozy.
A small-town businesswoman’s sleuthing marks her for death.
Winona Mae Montgomery saved her Granny Smythe’s apple orchard from ruin by building a thriving cider and event business in Blossom Valley, West Virginia. She’s receiving praise, and a hefty check, for throwing together a fabulous wedding reception for Elsie Sawyer and Jack Warren when the party's happy mood turns sour. The bride seems angry, the groom tipsy, and Winnie’s heartbreaking ex-boyfriend Hank Donovan’s interested in making out with a bridesmaid. But these minor glitches pale when the groom is found dead under the truck with "Just Married" on the window after having had words with Hank. Winnie developed a relationship with Sheriff Colton Wise in her last brush with murder (Apple Cider Slaying, 2019). Although he’s willing to listen to her ideas, he warns her off the case, a warning she ignores since Hank is a prime suspect. The best man, Aaron, had the key to the truck, but even after it turns up in the visor, Winnie keeps him on her list of suspects, along with the bride and the bridesmaid, who’s made herself scarce. After Hank’s sister, Gina, begs Winnie for help, they discover a bunch of flirty emails from Sarah Bear Twenty-two, who turns out to be the elusive bridesmaid. When Colton tells Winnie that mud found in her house contains mushrooms, she realizes that it may have been left by Hank, who has an old cabin in the woods, and she enlists her best friend, park ranger Dot, to help her find it. Soon after they find camping gear inside the cabin that Hank probably took from Winnie’s house, someone starts shooting at them, and they must run for their lives. Winnie realizes that she must find out a lot more about the bride and groom before she can possibly understand who murdered Jack and is willing to kill again to keep a secret.
A budding romance and an age-old motive combine in a heartwarming cozy.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2349-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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