The lives of five thirtyish African-Americans are updated in this final installment of a trilogy (Invisible Life, 1992; Just As I Am, 1994) that doesn—t stray from the soap-opera conventions that also govern the first two. The cast will be familiar to readers of the series: Raymond, Trent, Nicole, Jared, and Basil are all educated, successful, fairly well-off professionals who eat sumptuous meals and spend time with expensive therapists—a deft by-the-numbers strategy that excuses Harris from having to develop their characters himself. Ray and his old frat brother Trent live happily in their gorgeous Seattle home; Nicole and Jared, still childless in New York, enjoy immaculate marital bliss; Basil, also a Big Apple denizen, is a handsome ESPN sports commentator. All the men have excellent pectorals and exquisite butts; all the women are shapely and beautiful. Not that they don—t have problems. When Ray is nominated for a federal judgeship, his love for Trent is challenged by an FBI background check that reveals Trent’s criminal record. Nicole wins a part in the show Dreamgirls, but her success is threatened by a scheming understudy. Basil internally rages against his uncle while nonviolently abusing a variety of men and women. Still, in the end anyone who is driven by hatred is thwarted; anyone who embraces love and forgiveness prevails; and most reconciliations are sealed by hot tumbles in the bedroom. Only friendless loner Basil fails to right himself, though the close offers some hope—presumably for another installment. Harris is a writer with a passable talent for pacing and dialogue, but his characters fail to evolve and their changes of heart are wholly predictable. More of the same from an unadventurous conception.
Pub Date: March 16, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-48657-X
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
