DO EVERYTHING IN THE DARK

Name: DO EVERYTHING IN THE DARK
Author: Gary Indiana
ISBN: 0-312-31205-9

by Gary Indiana ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2003

Adept at describing the internal forces that pull people downward, less so at creating characters whose personalities are...

bookshelf

Indiana’s sixth outing (after Depraved Indifference, 2001) explores the damaged psyches of a group of artists, all on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The web of characters here—actors, playwrights, authors, painters, as well as their loved ones—have all met with some degree of success. That is to say, also, that they have met with some degree of failure, increasingly so as the years go on. Depression, anxiety, restlessness, and lingering resentment have brought most of them to a state of paralysis, where their creative efforts and romantic liaisons have begun to putrefy. These are ills that can be cured neither by therapy nor heroin, sex nor travel. At the center of the coterie is Indiana himself, recounting everyone else’s stories as an admittedly unreliable narrator, staying put in New York as the others disappear around the world, only to return. He includes his own story only insofar as it may be an integral part of another’s tale—a device that leaves something of a vacuum in an already fractured narrative, enigma and begging for a hint of transparency that might illuminate the fatal self-destruction he hints at. Indiana’s jump-cut writing style—clipped, clever, filled with knowing cultural references—makes for a quick and snappy read. But it leaves the characters with a certain shallowness that makes it difficult for the reader to connect or care as they struggle with their inner demons.

Adept at describing the internal forces that pull people downward, less so at creating characters whose personalities are more complex than their neuroses.

Pub Date: June 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-312-31205-9

Page Count: 288

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
TINY FISH THAT ONLY WANT TO KISS
by Gary Indiana

- BOOK REVIEW
I CAN GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE
by Gary Indiana

- BOOK REVIEW
ANDY WARHOL AND THE CAN THAT SOLD THE WORLD
by Gary Indiana

bookshelf

MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

bookshelf

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

bookshelf

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.