Like this English author's The Antique Collector (1991), another darkly original novel, this one set among the infernal mills of newly industrializing Yorkshire during the hapless, scattered, Luddite worker rebellions, circa 1812-16. Above the horrendous cruelty, stupidity, and bubbling ambition among people of all castes struggling to cope with a new age, Hughes, here, skims off an improbable love affair between a schoolmaster/weaver doomed to inconsequence and a dying, redheaded, desperately coping prostitute. The workers' raid in honor of ``King Ludd'' has failed; and Mor, always suspect because of his (potentially subversive) learning, leaves his village and the starving family he cannot save—his wife (forever frozen in dry fear), one son already crippled by the mill, and the nine-year-old Edwin, already a dawn-to-dusk factory sacrifice—and finds Mary, with whom he trades guilty secrets. With betrayal a sport as well as a livelihood (a so-kind elderly couple turn in Edwin and Margaret, two abused escaping factory waifs), the lovers ``can't betray each other.'' Mor's trek with Mary among soldiers, a mill owner, and a cynical general is through dangerous waters, while the savagery of child abuse, the stranglehold of petty officials on the poor, and a feral injustice set the pace. Finally, all are betrayed—by their innocence, by the times. At the close, Mary, pregnant by Mor, presses on to what she visualizes as her own peaceful valley (after sending little Margaret off to what she hopes will be an elegant life in her old whorehouse), and Mor, his immortality gone when his manuscript of grievances is burnt, is forced into the army. And the Revolution? ``For one who suffers, 'opes. And one who 'opes, believes.'' Through the pall of man-made misery, Hughes darts the blood red of nature and human love. A bitter, bright, and moving novel.
Pub Date: March 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-72516-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-688-13166-2 King Midas And The Golden Touch ($16.00; PLB $15.63; Apr.; 32 pp.; 0-688-13165-4; PLB 0-688-13166-2): The familiar tale of King Midas gets the golden touch in the hands of Craft and Craft (Cupid and Psyche, 1996). The author takes her inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retelling, capturing the essence of the tale with the use of pithy dialogue and colorful description. Enchanting in their own right, the illustrations summon the Middle Ages as a setting, and incorporate colors so lavish that when they are lost to the uniform gold spurred by King Midas’s touch, the point of the story is further burnished. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-13165-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Lunge-Larsen and Preus debut with this story of a flower that blooms for the first time to commemorate the uncommon courage of a girl who saves her people from illness. The girl, an Ojibwe of the northern woodlands, knows she must journey to the next village to get the healing herb, mash-ki- ki, for her people, who have all fallen ill. After lining her moccasins with rabbit fur, she braves a raging snowstorm and crosses a dark frozen lake to reach the village. Then, rather than wait for morning, she sets out for home while the villagers sleep. When she loses her moccasins in the deep snow, her bare feet are cut by icy shards, and bleed with every step until she reaches her home. The next spring beautiful lady slippers bloom from the place where her moccasins were lost, and from every spot her injured feet touched. Drawing on Ojibwe sources, the authors of this fluid retelling have peppered the tale with native words and have used traditional elements, e.g., giving voice to the forces of nature. The accompanying watercolors, with flowing lines, jewel tones, and decorative motifs, give stately credence to the story’s iconic aspects. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90512-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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