An often refreshing look into the forgotten plight of Irish indentured workers.
After committing a crime against the aristocracy, an Irish blacksmith and his son are forced to become indentured servants in Virginia in Malcolm’s debut novel.
Born into a family of blacksmiths in Kilkenny, Ireland, in the mid-1800s, Aidan Smith is a strong, God-fearing man who cares for nothing more than his beloved wife, Louisa, and their young son, Jack. Shortly after Louisa becomes pregnant with their second child, three men accost her in the street. Aiden dashes to her aid and fights off her attackers, accidentally killing one of them. The recipient of the fatal blow happens to be a baron, so Aidan is arrested and faces the prospect of being sent to the gallows. His solicitor manages to lighten the sentence, so the Smith family is ordered to leave Ireland and become indentured servants in America. They set sail just before the dreaded potato blight, but typhus decimates the ship’s passengers and the pregnant Louisa dies. Aidan and Jack land in Philadelphia and the vindictive Mr. Snead, representative of Virginia landowner William Cauley, purchases their labor. The father and son are relieved when they arrive at the plantation to find that the owner and his wife treat their workers with respect and care. The Smiths set about making new lives for themselves and bond with black workers who have come from much harsher working conditions on other plantations. Still, Sneed’s menace is ever-present, and when escaped slaves start to arrive at night, trouble beckons. Overall, this is a story told with warmth and honesty. Malcolm sensitively and convincingly charts the troubles, needs, and triumphs of a father and son coming to terms with tragedy, while also struggling to gain a foothold in the unforgiving New World. The author’s synthesis of the Irish brogue, however, is gratingly unnatural and inconsistent: “God willin’, I believe I have it in me power ta grant ye that wish.” Furthermore, the fluid nature of the story’s interracial relations appears somewhat odd given the era, although progressive thinkers did exist. These are minor grumbles, though, and readers will find that they don’t detract too much from the compelling plot.
An often refreshing look into the forgotten plight of Irish indentured workers.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-615-99253-2
Page Count: 276
Publisher: LightSeeker Media
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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