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Jewish American Prig

Name: Jewish American Prig
Author: Edith Stone
ISBN: 978-1-4992-2872-4

by Edith Stone ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 5, 2015

Impossible chronology adds the wrong kind of puzzlement to an otherwise overfamiliar plot.

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In Stone’s debut novel, a middle-aged woman reflects on her lifelong struggles toward self-esteem, sexual openness, and healthy relationships.

As Celia Browne, 55, is speaking with Harold, her new lover (a week ago, her therapist), she unwinds a chain of recollection so he can “know how I learned not to be the eternal patient and why everything became sex in my mind.” Celia grows up in Rochester, New York, in a middle-class Jewish family that includes three live-in spinster aunts who contribute to the buttoned-up, sexually repressive atmosphere of the time. Her aunts criticize Celia mercilessly (especially her weight). Her cousins also tease and bully her, and Celia’s parents don’t defend her. Sex is taboo, as is talking about abuse, sexual or otherwise. Celia attends college, meets her first great love, and moves to California where she becomes a children’s librarian. Later, she switches to a degree in social work. As the sexual revolution progresses, Celia sees many therapists, marries and has children, takes a lover, and files for divorce. She comes to realize that “love is so much more than physical satisfaction.” Her honesty and openness, as well as the genuine compassion she shows as a social worker, make her relatable. But other qualities are off-putting: she holds long grudges and is obsessed with looks, weight, and status. Her insights are mostly couched in therapeutic clichés; for example, “She was too lacking in self-worth to believe she was that loveable to anyone.” Sexual repression in the 1950s is a well-explored topic, and the novel adds nothing new. Also problematic is the story’s timeline, which is confused. For example, in 1965, Celia is 26 years old, which would make 1939 her birth year. But in 2005, she’s 55, so she must have been born in 1950. These are not easily reconcilable discrepancies, and they pervade the novel.

Impossible chronology adds the wrong kind of puzzlement to an otherwise overfamiliar plot.

Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-4992-2872-4

Page Count: 292

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2015

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.