Stewart (Pomp and Circumstance, 1991, etc., etc.) customarily produces narratives filled with snapshot-like scenes of high drama- -perhaps with TV rights in mind—and this lurid, mid-19th-century adventure at sea is no exception. Justin Savage is the youngest son of the mortally ill shipping tycoon Nathaniel Savage. Although the spunky Justin is his father's favorite, as an illegitimate child he will not inherit the bulk of the old man's fortune; rather, the evil Sylvaner, Justin's much older half-brother, will take over the family business once Nathaniel dies. Sylvaner's wife, Adelaide Crowninshield, is his equal when it comes to all things malevolent; when the wayward, greedy pair learn that Nathaniel's last wish is for Justin to sail to China as a cabin boy on one of the ships in his fleet, they pay a crew member to murder him at sea. En route to China, Justin quickly makes many friends, including the lovely Samantha Aspinall, who saves his life and foils Sylvaner's plot. While Justin, with Samantha's help, reads his mother's diary (left him by Nathaniel, who wanted him to learn the truth of his origins), Sylvaner has uncovered what the diary reveals: That Justin's real mother was Adelaide's sister, making Justin Sylvaner's brother and nephew-by- marriage, and the only male heir to the Crowninshield name. Justin and Samantha's innocent shipboard romance is thwarted when, improbably, a pirate named Madame Ching captures their ship and the two are separated; both are later forced to marry for the wrong reasons, but eventually, after his Far Eastern adventures, Justin falls in love again, this time with the ravishing Fiametta. Through it all, he must dodge the relentless Sylvaner and find a way to survive the Taiping rebellion in China; when he finally gets home, everyone gets their deserts. Contrived (down to the un-punny title), although the fast pace and swashbuckling style lend a certain readability.
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-86111-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
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
Despite getting a little preachy toward the end, Leary has largely achieved a genuinely funny novel about alcoholism.
A supposedly recovering alcoholic real estate agent tells her not-exactly-trustworthy version of life in her small New England town in this tragicomic novel by Leary (Outtakes from a Marriage, 2008, etc.).
Sixty-year-old Hildy Good, a divorced realtor who has lived all her life in Wendover on the Massachusetts North Shore, proudly points to having an ancestor burned at the stake at the Salem witch trials. In fact, her party trick is to do psychic readings using subtle suggestions and observational skills honed by selling homes. At first, the novel seems to center on Hildy’s insights about her Wendover neighbors, particularly her recent client Rebecca McAllister, a high-strung young woman who has moved into a local mansion with her businessman husband and two adopted sons. Hildy witnesses Rebecca having trouble fitting in with other mothers, visiting the local psychiatrist Peter Newbold, who rents an office above Hildy’s, and winning a local horse show on her expensive new mount. Hildy is acerbically funny and insightful about her neighbors; many, like her, are from old families whose wealth has evaporated. She becomes Rebecca’s confidante about the affair Rebecca is having with Peter, whom Hildy helped baby-sit when he was a lonely child. She helps another family who needs to sell their house to afford schooling for their special needs child. She begins an affair with local handyman Frankie Getchell, with whom she had a torrid romance as a teenager. But Hildy, who has recently spent a stint in rehab and joined AA after an intervention by her grown daughters, is not quite the jolly eccentric she appears. There are those glasses of wine she drinks alone at night, those morning headaches and memory lapses that are increasing in frequency. As both Rebecca’s and Hildy’s lives spin out of control, the tone darkens until it approaches tragedy. Throughout, Hildy is original, irresistibly likable and thoroughly untrustworthy.
Despite getting a little preachy toward the end, Leary has largely achieved a genuinely funny novel about alcoholism.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-01554-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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