An engrossing and philosophically challenging meditation on what it means to be a living being worthy of moral respect.
A predatory leopard plagues a woman’s cattle farm in Africa as she struggles to devise a response with the help of a scientifically minded gorilla.
In this novel, Jane Porter lives on a cattle farm in Kenya with her husband, John Greystoke, an Englishman of notable descent. They suffer regular attacks by a leopard they call Sheeta, and as the losses mount, they try to devise a plan to thwart him. But Sheeta turns out to be a cunning hunter and only grows bolder over time, even taunting their futile efforts to capture him. Meanwhile, the couple meet Chulk, a 400-pound gorilla endowed with astonishingly precocious intelligence, capable of speech and rational inference. As a result of Chulk’s preoccupation with abstract, intellectual concerns, he’s “rebuffed by his clan.” Under Jane’s patient tutelage, Chulk becomes extraordinarily well-versed in the intricacies of scientific investigation and helps Jane brainstorm a way to defend her family’s land against Sheeta’s costly assaults. After John dies trying to stop Sheeta, Jane is left in charge of the farm, though she finds herself at loggerheads with her son, Jack, who has old-fashioned ideas about gender roles and pretensions about the “Greystoke destiny.” Chulk, a “magnificent scientific discovery,” deepens his reflections to include not just science, but also the whole of life, displaying the “avid curiosity of a social anthropologist.” His ruminations extend to philosophical and theological matters as well, and he engages in profound exchanges with Jane, a devout Quaker, about the nature of the universe, conversations intelligently depicted by Barnes (The Beauty Queen of Bonthe and Other Stories of West Africa, 2018, etc.). The plot is a remarkably inventive one, and the author raises provocative questions about the relationships between different species—John at one point is deeply attracted to a female gorilla. In addition, Barnes sensitively tackles the issue of the societal constraints placed on Jane both as a woman and a senior citizen—she is forced to squarely confront what she calls the “handicaps of my age and (particularly) my gender.” This is a peculiar but captivating tale that readers will not soon forget.
An engrossing and philosophically challenging meditation on what it means to be a living being worthy of moral respect.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-974301-86-7
Page Count: 242
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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