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String's Cross

Name: String's Cross
Author: Guri P. Essen
ISBN: 978-0-692-42086-7

by Guri P. Essen ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2015

A strange, disjointed novel that will sometimes delight readers but mostly flummox them.

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A sweeping history of a family with immigrant origins and of a nation in turmoil.

In his debut novel, Essen tracks the eventful life of a man named String Ambuehl beginning with his grandparents’ arrival to the United States at the conclusion of the 19th century. String’s mother and father, Rose and Irving, meet in San Diego and stumble through a halting romance that finally bears fruit during the Prohibition years. They give birth to String, who later becomes the first in his family to graduate high school, just as the United States fully enters World War II. He then joins the military, but the story discloses little about his experience as a soldier. Later, he attends college and develops philosophical sympathies for communism—a dangerous intellectual bent during the tense Cold War years. He’s eventually charged with and arrested for espionage, and the book closes with an account of his trial. Inexplicably, Essen, as himself, speaks directly to readers beginning in the ninth chapter, explaining that a life-threatening medical condition may thwart the completion of his book. From that point on, he intersperses autobiographical vignettes, recounting his own contributions to the creation of the personal computer in Silicon Valley. There’s no artistic need for these minimemoirs, and their inclusion is both confusing and jarring. Also, although the author has a prolific imagination, it’s unfortunately undisciplined; he seems intent on conjuring as many characters as possible without endowing them with real personhood. The plot, too, is wildly creative but frustratingly directionless. It’s clear that the story is meant to evoke biblical themes, as it’s spangled with quotes from the Bible, but their relevance is never made clear. For example, in lieu of a description of a sex scene, Essen offers, “an invisible heaven of angels and saints…no war or strife exists there, only eternal peace and blessed rest. No evil spirit can invade that heaven. Rather Satan has been cast out, and his authority taken from him.” The book as a whole is a powerful demonstration of Essen’s fecund mind. However, that alone won’t command readers’ attention.

A strange, disjointed novel that will sometimes delight readers but mostly flummox them.

Pub Date: July 11, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-692-42086-7

Page Count: 354

Publisher: HeronDrivePres

Review Posted Online: April 11, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- SEEN & HEARD
Salinger Focus of NYPL Exhibit

- SEEN & HEARD
NYC Mayoral Candidates Name Favorite Gotham Books

- APPRECIATIONS
Holden Caulfield: Forever Young

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.