bookshelf

A MATTER OF TIME

Name: A MATTER OF TIME
Author: Ed Davis
ISBN: 978-0-9860697-6-5

by Ed Davis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 19, 2018

A prison tale that offers a compelling setup but lacks momentum.

bookshelf

A novella chronicles a condemned man’s final day before his execution.

In 2010, in an alternative America, a man named Ed Davis sits in a prison cell waiting to die. In 24 hours, he will face a firing squad for murdering a man on the city hall steps of his hometown of Elgin, California. After a decade of terrorist attacks and draconian security laws, President Trent came to power two years earlier and instituted a despotic, right-wing regime. Ed has long been a critic of the country’s rightward shift. In Elgin, he and his Sunday morning jogging club—the Slow Old Guys, as they were known—even attempted to wage their own nonviolent resistance on the local level. Then everything fell tragically apart, leaving Ed to contemplate his life’s wasted moments: “What I don’t know is: what would I take back? What I don’t know is: which of those minutes that seemed wasted led to others that weren’t? Maybe led to others that were great—a lifetime that was great in so many ways. Yet—they all led finally to this night, this place, this cell.” As the hours pass, he meets with friends, enemies, and bureaucrats, all the while digging deeper into his memory in order to find some antidote to his fear. Author Davis’ (In All Things, 2014, etc.) prose is sharp, particularly when he describes Ed’s present, slowly ratcheting up the tension with each tick of the clock: “There’s the door for the lunch-cart. A little late. Almost twenty after the hour, but what do I care? I’m not going anyplace—at least not for a while.” Less satisfying are the expositional passages that explain how America and Ed came to be in their current predicament, which are a tad dull and disappointingly uninventive. The author explains in his foreword that this novella was itself written in 24 hours back in 2002 (and as such, its political bent is actually a reaction to President George W. Bush, not Donald Trump). This perhaps explains some of the story’s shortcomings, but nevertheless leaves readers with a work that is not nearly as intriguing or revelatory as its premise promises.

A prison tale that offers a compelling setup but lacks momentum.

Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-9860697-6-5

Page Count: 174

Publisher: The Wedgewood Press

Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAST PROFESSIONAL
by Ed Davis ; illustrated by Colin Elgie

- BOOK REVIEW
IN ALL THINGS
by Ed Davis

bookshelf

BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

bookshelf

Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

bookshelf

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.