A novel that wavers between fireball excitement and abysmal vulgarity, that leaves the reader dazed with complexities and a feeling that greater spiritual health might have resulted through never having read it—though zillions will. Robbins is no clearer this time out than he's ever been. The sex-and-cocaine-driven, power-hungry plot begins with such rapid editing and scene-switching that the reader's feet barely get grounded before they're somewhere else: For about a third of the novel it's straight action/adventure on the Amazon; then the byzantine plot becomes Robbins's fettuccine Alfredo, with strands dipping and whipping and doubling back until even the main characters don't know who's on whose side—and even the most unaware reader realizes that Robbins's storytelling is as important as his story. If you can follow it, Robbins has failed. Jed Stevens (formerly Di Stefano) is induced by his Mafia cousin Angelo into a trip up the Amazon that turns out to be a big coca-leaf buy; they are accompanied by beautiful translator Alma, who is immensely proud of her ``Peruvian pussy''—but they are attacked by mestizos, Angelo is eaten by piranhas, and Alma gets Jed out of Peru and back to Manhattan, where Jed's Uncle Rocco (Angelo's father) is top capo and wants Jed to join him in the Mafia except that Jed wants to get into airlines and with a big loan from Uncle Rocco buys fleets of jetliners and rents them out to small countries but then finds himself involved in huge junk-bond deals and more or less legitimate credit scams while Uncle Rocco unsuccessfully tries to retire from the Mafia so that he can die with honor at home in bed rather than by a hail of bullets during a time when lead-filled bodies are falling on every other page and surreal financial deals are clinched by world-hopping satyrs and girls who say, ``Would you like some pussy pie? But just remember, you'll have to lick your fingers, it's very, very juicy.'' Unclean, unclean!
Pub Date: June 27, 1991
ISBN: 0-671-52479-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1991
A presold prefab blockbuster, what with King's Carrie hitting the moviehouses, Salem's Lot being lensed, The Shining itself sold to Warner Bros. and tapped as a Literary Guild full selection, NAL paperback, etc. (enough activity to demand an afterlife to consummate it all).
The setting is The Overlook, a palatial resort on a Colorado mountain top, snowbound and closed down for the long, long winter. Jack Torrance, a booze-fighting English teacher with a history of violence, is hired as caretaker and, hoping to finish a five-act tragedy he's writing, brings his wife Wendy and small son Danny to the howling loneliness of the half-alive and mad palazzo. The Overlook has a gruesome past, scenes from which start popping into the present in various suites and the ballroom. At first only Danny, gifted with second sight (he's a "shiner"), can see them; then the whole family is being zapped by satanic forces. The reader needs no supersight to glimpse where the story's going as King's formula builds to a hotel reeling with horrors during Poesque New Year's Eve revelry and confetti outta nowhere....
Back-prickling indeed despite the reader's unwillingness at being mercilessly manipulated.
Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1976
ISBN: 0385121679
Page Count: 453
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1976
PERSPECTIVES
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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