by Elizabeth Dewberry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2001
Run-of-the-mill psychological thriller tarted up with psychobabble.
Is the governor of Louisiana planning to kill his daughter because he knows that she knows he killed her mother to further his political and romantic interests—or is the daughter simply paranoid?
Thirty-five-year-old Grayson Guillory finds an unmarked video in a hollowed-out copy of a Huey Long biography. Even before she watches it, she suspects the worst, and she’s right: the tape shows Grayson’s mother, shortly before her supposed suicide 11 months before, claiming that her husband, whose political ambitions range beyond the governor’s mansion, was plotting with others to kill her. Still deeply depressed about her mother’s death, Grayson begins to suspect every word and deed of her beloved father—who waited only two months to marry his dead wife’s sister. She also suspects his cronies, including her own fiancé Carter, her father’s closest political aide. Using italics to suggest the divisions growing inside Grayson as she second-guesses her own and everyone else’s motivations, Dewberry (a.k.a. Elizabeth Dewberry Vaughn: Break the Heart of Me, 1994, etc.) effectively depicts her narrator’s increasing paranoia as it races alongside her increasingly reasonable dread. But Grayson is so spoiled and self-centered that readers will find it difficult to care much about her predicament, particularly since the narrow world she and the governor’s entourage inhabit is peopled by others even less likable or believable. Grayson’s mother is the worst sort of Tennessee Williams reject while her father is a Huey Long wannabe. Carter, meanwhile, is a noncharacter whose only interesting trait, collecting fish for his salt-water aquarium, turns out to be a plot device. Since his relationship with Grayson lacks nuance or romance, the fact that he may be manipulating or betraying her isn’t particularly disturbing. In truth, as the body count rises, the mystery of who did what becomes almost comically obvious—despite Dewberry’s ever-so-serious pretensions.
Run-of-the-mill psychological thriller tarted up with psychobabble.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14854-X
Page Count: 240
Publisher: BlueHen/Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2001
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by C.S. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1942
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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by Chaim Potok ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 1967
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
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