Trinidadian writer Lovelace (The Wine of Astonishment, 1984, etc.) returns after a long hiatus with a tale that starts out as an affecting Caribbean version of It's A Wonderful Life, then disappointingly turns into a flat riff on race and the past. Alford George, the youngest son of a poor Trinidadian farm worker, is a slow starter. He doesn't speak until he's six, and that's only after his mother, fearing she's being punished for neglecting her African roots, consults a traditional healer. Later, Alford dreams of leaving Trinidad and going to England, where so many islanders head to make better lives. England is for him ``more than a place,'' it is ``a mission, a Sacred Order that brought him into meaning, into Life,'' and he systematically begins to prepare himself to emigrate. His early school years, however, are not propitious: He is neither a good student nor an athlete. But Alford perseveres, studying the dictionary, listening to the BBC, running errands for teachers, and becoming an umpire. By his 20s, he's a respected schoolteacher, able to keep order and inspire children, but his undimmed dream of leaving the island is repeatedly deferred as he gives his earnings to his father to build a house, then is drawn into local controversies. Appalled by an educational system that neglects most of its students, he eventually mounts a hunger strike in the capital to draw attention to the problem. Soon Alford's courted by politicians who encourage him to stand for parliament. And it's here that the story begins to lose its charm and vigor: Various voices, including those of the descendants of Asian indentured laborers, white planters, and slaves, break into the narrative to tell their own stories, diluting the novel's impact. Though Alford realizes that his mission in life is in fact to make life better on his island, his epiphany has been greatly diminished. An evocative story that tries too hard.
Pub Date: March 10, 1997
ISBN: 0-89255-226-3
Page Count: 260
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997
SEEN & HEARD
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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