Knox’s wild and wooly fictions (Black Oxen, 2001, etc.) aren’t for everybody, but if minimalism doesn’t satisfy your...
New Zealander Knox, an energetic magical-realist with a vibrant comic imagination, scores strongly again with this densely plotted tale of a waiflike shipwreck survivor’s bizarre life and loves.
In 1903, the Gustav Edda, en route to the twin Scottish islands of Kissack and Skilling, unaccountably “explodes” upon reaching port, killing most of its crew and passengers. An exception is 20-year-old Wilhelmina “Billie” Paxton, who had jumped into the water seconds before the catastrophe. The reader knows why, but fellow survivor Murdo Hesketh does not—and he soon undertakes to discover why Billie had committed “sabotage.” The progress of this central plot strand is interrupted, and complicated, by the parallel “investigation” performed by a butler named (Geordie) Betler, who travels to the islands’ primary settlement, Stolsnay, to learn about the disaster that had claimed the life of his younger brother. As Knox subtly reveals the connections among Billie’s inchoate maturity (she’s mildly retarded: a kind of Dostoevskyan “innocent”), savant-like musical gift, and constantly changing relationship with the driven Murdo, she also layers in increasingly crucial information about the ambitious plans contrived by Murdo’s wealthy cousin Lord Hallowhulme (the de facto “lord” of this kingdom), a murder buried in Stolsnay’s past, Sir Francis Galton’s theory of eugenics and the minutiae of “pisciculture,” and the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Shakespeare. This arguably overcrowded melodrama (which echoes the replete symbolic novels of both Patrick White and John Cowper Powys) alternately frustrates and fascinates, but Knox somehow pulls most of its unruly parts together, rewarding the bedazzled reader with a stunning climactic confrontation between Murdo and the Prospero-like Lord Hallowhulme, and a deus ex machina topper that the late Richard Condon might have concocted.
Knox’s wild and wooly fictions (Black Oxen, 2001, etc.) aren’t for everybody, but if minimalism doesn’t satisfy your appetite for narrative, she may just be the writer for you.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-345-45052-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2002
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.
Another surprise from an author who never writes the same novel twice.
Though Whitehead has earned considerable critical acclaim for his earlier work—in particular his debut (The Intuitionist, 1999) and its successor (John Henry Days, 2001)—he’ll likely reach a wider readership with his warmest novel to date. Funniest as well, though there have been flashes of humor throughout his writing. The author blurs the line between fiction and memoir as he recounts the coming-of-age summer of 15-year-old Benji Cooper in the family’s summer retreat of New York’s Sag Harbor. “According to the world, we were the definition of paradox: black boys with beach houses,” writes Whitehead. Caucasians are only an occasional curiosity within this idyll, and parents are mostly absent as well. Each chapter is pretty much a self-contained entity, corresponding to a rite of passage: getting the first job, negotiating the mysteries of the opposite sex. There’s an accident with a BB gun and plenty of episodes of convincing someone older to buy beer, but not much really happens during this particular summer. Yet by the end of it, Benji is well on his way to becoming Ben, and he realizes that he is a different person than when the summer started. He also realizes that this time in his life will eventually live only in memory. There might be some distinctions between Benji and Whitehead, though the novelist also spent his youthful summers in Sag Harbor and was the same age as Benji in 1985, when the novel is set. Yet the first-person narrator has the novelist’s eye for detail, craft of character development and analytical instincts for sharp social commentary.
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.Pub Date: April 28, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-52765-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK TO SCREEN
A steamy, glitzy, and tender tale of college intrigue.
In this opener to Kennedy’s (Hot & Bothered, 2017, etc.) Briar U romance series, two likable students keep getting their signals crossed.
Twenty-one-year-old Summer Heyward-Di Laurentis is expelled from Brown University in the middle of her junior year because she was responsible for a fire at the Kappa Beta Nu sorority house. Fortunately, her father has connections, so she’s now enrolled in Briar University, a prestigious institution about an hour outside Boston. But as she’s about to move into Briar’s Kappa Beta Nu house, she’s asked to leave by the sisters, who don’t want her besmirching their reputation. Her older brother Dean, who’s a former Briar hockey star, comes to her rescue; his buddies, who are still on the hockey team, need a fourth roommate for their townhouse. Three good-looking hockey jocks and a very rich, gorgeous fashion major under the same roof—what could go wrong? Summer becomes quickly infatuated with one of her housemates: Dean’s best friend Colin “Fitzy” Fitzgerald. There’s a definite spark between them, and they exchange smoldering looks, but the tattooed Fitzy, who’s also a video game reviewer and designer, is an introvert who prefers no “drama” in his life. Summer, however, is a charming extrovert, although she has an inferiority complex about her flagging scholastic acumen. As the story goes on, the pair seem to misinterpret each other’s every move. Meanwhile, another roommate and potential suitor, Hunter Davenport, is waiting in the wings. Kennedy’s novel is full of sex, alcohol, and college-level profanity, but it never becomes formulaic. The author adroitly employs snappy dialogue, steady pacing, and humor, as in a scene at a runway fashion show featuring Briar jocks parading in Summer-designed swimwear. The book also manages to touch on some serious subjects, including learning disabilities and abusive behavior by faculty members. Summer and Fitzy’s repeated stumbles propel the plot through engaging twists and turns; the characters trade off narrating the story, which gives each of them a chance to reveal some substance.
A steamy, glitzy, and tender tale of college intrigue.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72482-199-7
Page Count: 372
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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