Relentlessly, aggressively, inventively and often hilariously silly.
In the fourth of this madcap series (The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists, 2006, etc.), the Pirate Captain, disillusioned after a crushing loss in the Pirate-of-the-Year pageant, decides to throw over buccaneering for a quiet life of beekeeping.
Unfortunately, the Captain is taken in yet again by Black Bellamy. When his longtime nemesis deeds him the island of St. Helena, the Pirate Captain fails to notice that the document is scrawled on a tiki-bar drinks menu and that the wax seal “is actually the casing from a novelty cheese.” Accompanied by his grumblingly loyal crew (the pirate with a scarf, the pirate with gout, and so on), the Captain voyages to this godforsaken speck that’s supposed to be a tropical paradise, discovers Black Bellamy’s fraud and decides to stay anyway. He will content himself with being the island’s most illustrious inhabitant. He hosts a lavish housewarming, and the Pirate Captain is dazzling his guests with tales of derring-do and plying them with the available foodstuffs (“boiled jellyfish, rain, and pebbles”) when there’s a knock. In walks the newly exiled Napoleon. The two fancy-hatted rivals begin a titanic war of egos, which culminates in a race for headship of the St. Helena Residents’ Association. The campaign is quite funny, with the Pirate Captain compiling a list of his constituents’ likes: “They like Queen Victoria. They like crisps. Bingo! We’ll make a statue of Queen Victoria out of crisps, thus killing two birds with one stone. Honestly, a political mind like mine only comes along once in a generation.”
Relentlessly, aggressively, inventively and often hilariously silly.Pub Date: May 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-42398-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Tedium is inevitable as we watch these Tudor heirs wait.
The bloodlines, if not the ambitions, of three Tudor sisters imperil their lives.
Gregory’s multivolume chronicle of the Tudor dynasty, with its emphasis on the women, now turns to the ill-fated scholar and Protestant reformer Jane Grey and her two sisters, Katherine and Mary, grandnieces of Henry VIII. Upon the death of Henry's sickly son, King Edward VI, Jane, through complex machinations on the part of Protestant nobles wishing to block the accession of papist Princess Mary, takes the throne of England. In a matter of days, as told in Jane’s first-person section—one of three, each narrated by a Grey sister—Jane is deposed by Princess Mary’s forces and, after several months' imprisonment in the Tower, beheaded. As a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, who has succeeded Princess Mary, Katherine thinks the Greys are out of danger until she marries her lover Edward "Ned" Seymour in secret, without royal permission. Through a drawn-out tragedy of errors, most ascribable to youth, bad timing, and political naiveté, Katherine and Ned find themselves in the following predicaments: he goes on an extended tour of France and Italy having been assured by Katherine that she is not pregnant, though she later learns that she is. Ned’s sister Janey Seymour and the officiating minister, the only witnesses to the marriage, die and disappear, respectively. Unable to reach Ned, who is not answering her letters, Katherine seeks help elsewhere but is universally rebuffed, then arrested; she gives birth to her son in the Tower. Katherine’s section of the book, the longest, drags: since she knows very little, her first-person point of view cannot enlighten the reader, who spends many pages mulling over multiple mysteries: why is Ned incommunicado? Will he return? Can Katherine prove her son is legitimate? Will Elizabeth pardon her? Etc. The third sister, Mary, due to her diminutive size, assumes she is beneath Elizabeth’s notice in all respects, but when she emulates Katherine’s mistake, she and readers are again forced into a limbo of pondering the queen’s next move.
Tedium is inevitable as we watch these Tudor heirs wait.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5876-3
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
An ambitious, absorbing caper that’s smartly paced, tough-minded and infused with emotional depth.
Mallon’s latest historical novel (after Bandbox, 2004, etc.) takes us back to the nominally peaceful mid-1950s, when the twin menaces of Communism and homosexuality were the real enemies of all things American.
Taking a page or two from Gore Vidal, Mallon juxtaposes the progress of Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s vindictive Un-American Activities Committee with the (similarly verboten) “subversion” practiced by closeted State Department whiz Hawkins Fuller (of godlike face and form, and shifting loyalties) and the young naïf who worships him. Callow senatorial aide Tim Laughlin is soft-shelled meat for the rapacious sexual appetites of the “Hawk”: A gentle, good Catholic boy who hoped political life might make a man of him, he refuses—even in the confessional—to repent of the dark pleasures to which Fuller subjects him. Their relationship takes place over a span of several years marked by the Korean War’s conclusion, the Suez Crisis, the Hungarian Revolution and the looming national prominence of V.P. Richard Nixon and Sen. John F. Kennedy. Though the large load of exposition required is not always successfully dramatized, we do learn much about the major issues of the time, and Mallon proves adept at making complex geopolitical matters flesh by filtering them through the viewpoints and agendas of both his principal fictional characters and a lively horde of historical ones, including Washington columnist Mary McGrory, Joseph McCarthy’s duplicitous attack dog Roy Cohn and miscellaneous members of Congress. The fallout from power politics is vividly shown in its destructive relation to Tim Laughlin’s selfless love and vulnerable idealism, as the Hawkins Fullers of the world ride the bubble of their charm, over bodies too numerous to count.
An ambitious, absorbing caper that’s smartly paced, tough-minded and infused with emotional depth.Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-375-42348-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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