A raunchy but memorable military tale.
Woodard (Wearing the Cat: Part One, 2016, etc.) delivers the second installment in his satirical series about a Navy dentist.
Lt. Nick McGill is stationed at an air base in Japan. As a member of the Dental Corps, his duties on base tend to involve drilling teeth and waiting around for dental emergencies, and he tries to keep his sanity despite military rigmarole. McGill engages in plenty of scenes of military comedy (some involving a rival lieutenant who develops a foot condition). His off-base actions, though, are at the heart of this bumpy adventure. He learns a lot about Japan as he teaches English to a high-rolling businessman named Mr. Sanbuichi, and he also falls in love with a local woman named Saori Sawa. He ventures into the country with gusto, noting that “If a spindly, Brit could become Lawrence of Arabia, then surely he, an American Uberlieutenant and Dentist, could become McGill of Japan.” Along the way, the Navy man becomes steeped in Japanese mythology and cuisine—he learns about a fabled fox with seven tails and the dangers of fugu fish, for example—all while pursuing sex with local women. Woodard makes clear that McGill doesn’t shy away from crassness; for instance, the lieutenant frequently refers to his “hardometer”—a metaphorical measurement of how erect his penis is. When a plane crash occurs on base, however, the novel takes a darker turn, and McGill’s story takes on a new level of earnestness. Readers will find that when a goofy figure like McGill deals with the unimaginable task of identifying mangled bodies, it gives the book a striking, unexpected realism. They’ll wonder how a man whose normal day-to-day concerns revolve around crude sexual fantasies deals with sea gulls picking at the remains of his former colleagues. The McGill that eventually emerges may still compare an indigestion-induced bowel movement to “fifty gallons of rich brown gravy,” but both he and readers come away with a fuller understanding of life and loss by the end of the novel.
A raunchy but memorable military tale.Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5410-1639-2
Page Count: 504
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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