by EA Luetkemeyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
An eccentric but extraordinary story about a potentially unsound mind.
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Luetkemeyer’s (The Book of Chuck, 2009) dreamlike tale follows a prison inmate as he thoroughly examines the nature of existence.
Martin Mueller is serving time at Lime Ridge State Correctional Center. The transgression that led to his confinement isn’t immediately revealed, but his release appears imminent. He was once the busy, billionaire owner of massive conglomerate Mueller Enterprises, but now he spends his days interacting with fellow prisoners, including Crazy Carl and Wilbur, who writes fantastical stories of the supernatural for Martin to read. But Martin also has his own project that he’s working on: He’s “attempting to solve a great mystery,” essentially debating humanity’s origin and purpose—which also entails questioning his own purpose. He visits the cell of inmate John Brown, who mesmerizes Martin by proving that he’d predicted Martin’s arrival that day as well as his topic of conversation. John then recounts his past lives in tales that stretch back thousands of years. Later, Martin’s memories of his business struggles and meeting his wife, Millie, reveal an apparent link between him and John. Martin ultimately learns things about himself that may significantly impact the “real world” to which he’ll soon be returning. Luetkemeyer’s novella packs an impressive amount of content in a concise narrative. From the beginning, it’s clear that Martin’s point of view is unreliable; for example, at one point, he drives a car home and then heads to his cell—so readers will be uncertain where he is or what part of the overall story he’s imagining. The novel subtly incorporates larger themes, including religion (John claims to have encountered figures from the Bible) and race (rich, white Martin gets preferential treatment over poor, African-American inmates). Although a sense of surreality reigns, Luetkemeyer’s prose is full of tangible images, such as a cryptic memo from the warden that discusses “Alternate Religions.” Although the ending does offer resolution, it also sounds an unmistakable note of ambiguity.
An eccentric but extraordinary story about a potentially unsound mind.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bad Roads Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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by Harper Lee
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Caitlin Mullen ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2020
A lyrical, incisive, and haunting debut.
In Atlantic City, the bodies of several women wait to be discovered and a young psychic begins having visions of terrible violence.
They are known only as Janes 1 through 6, the women who have been strangled and left in the marsh behind the seedy Sunset Motel. They wait for someone to miss them, to find them. That someone might be Clara, a teenage dropout who works the Atlantic City strip as a psychic and occasionally has visions. She can tell there's something dangerous at work, but she has other problems. To pay the rent, she begins selling her company, and then her body, to older men. One day she meets Lily, another young woman who'd escaped the depressing decay of Atlantic City for New York only to be betrayed by a man. She’s come back to AC because there’s nowhere else to go, and she spends her time working a dead-end job and drinking herself into oblivion. Together, Clara and Lily may be able to figure out the truth—but they will each lose something along the way. Mullen’s style is subtle, flowing; she switches the narrative voice with each chapter, giving us Clara and Lily but also each of the victims. At the heart of the novel lies the bitter observation that “Women get humiliated every day, in small stupid ways and in huge, disastrous ones.” Mullen writes about all the moments that women compromise themselves in the face of male desire and male power and how they learn to use sex as commerce because “men are always promised this, no matter who they are.” The other major character in the novel is Atlantic City itself: fading; falling to ruin; promising an old sort of glamour that no longer exists; swindling sad, lonely people out of their money. This backdrop is unexpected and well rendered.
A lyrical, incisive, and haunting debut.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-2748-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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