Modern America is in peril of being sucked down the spiritual drain by dead, angry Indians in this follow-up to Manitou and Revenge of the Manitou (both not reviewed). In the Greenbergs' Manhattan apartment, a hunched-up shadow appears on the wall and tears a humanlike shadow to pieces, while in other parts of America houses, cars, Kentucky Fried Chicken cartons, human corpses, and the Sears Tower are dragged into gaping holes. Thus commences the vengeance of Misquamacus, a Native American spirit who wants to reclaim his land by sucking everything the white man ever built or brought into a shadow world below the earth. There, Aktunowihio, the god of the underworld, will tear the bodies and souls of all white men and women to pieces, so that they will be tortured forever. Harry Erskine, the charlatan fortune teller and reluctant hero who battled and defeated Misquamacus earlier in the series, is drawn into the current battle when he witnesses the spirit manifest himself in the body of a medium with a Central Park West practice, hurl his fist down Mrs. Greenberg's throat and wiggle it through her innards until it emerges out of her vagina, then reverse the process, bringing her insides with it. The skeptical Harry quickly combines the talents of mediums, Indians, and spirits of the dead—including Singing Rock, who was beheaded earlier in the series—to bring the horror to a rapid and dull conclusion. Masterton is a good storyteller, but he exploits revisionist Native American history to detail unrelenting violence. The absurdity of disgorged intestines and forked-out eyeballs panders to juvenile tastes for blood and guts and precludes any possibility of inducing spine-tingling fear. Should Indian spirits ever really take their revenge, with any luck the sinkhole will open under Burial and send it where it belongs.
Pub Date: June 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-85681-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1994
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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