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SANDMAN, SLEEP

Name: SANDMAN, SLEEP
Author: Herbert Lieberman
ISBN: 0-312-08886-8

by Herbert Lieberman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1993

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A hundred years from now, the ritual return and sudden death of a mysterious, absent father lead to troubling questions about his life's work, the Humanus research project, that range far beyond whodunit—in this ambitious, sporadically inspired fantasy/mystery, a real departure for crime-pro Lieberman (Shadow Dancers, 1989, etc.). None of the Jones children immured in the far northern Fraze Institute—slow-witted Cornie, thoughtful Jonathan, petulant Ogden, sharp-tongued Sofi, ardent Letitia, star-crossed Leander, hesitant Cassie—knows what their father looks like, or even (since he's banished mirrors from his transplanted Loire castle) what they themselves look like. All they know is that once a year or so their father returns to interview them individually without revealing his face, then chooses one to take ``into Service'' with him. This time, Leander, the chosen one, vanishes during a family performance of The Tales of Hoffmann—and shortly after, Jones is found murdered. Both Cassie and Jonathan confess to the killing, though it turns out that the father was already dead. So far the story's genre may seem to be clear, especially with the arrival of the Dostoevskian official investigator, Colonel Porphyry. But a frantic note from Cassie takes Jonathan away from Fraze on an abrupt adventure in the brutish world of the neighboring aboriginal Woodsmen, who take him prisoner, put him through unspeakable ritual tortures, and then crown him their king. Meanwhile, back at the castle, Porphyry's search of a file of molding documents reveals that the late Jones wasn't the sprightly 90 he admitted to, but a well-preserved 147—a secret that goes to the heart of his visionary attempt to work with a former Nazi expert on recombinant DNA to prolong life—his own, his children's, and that of the entire species. The mixture of detection and fantasy—the fantasy greatly predominating—makes this somewhat comparable to Akif Pirináci's recent Felidae, though without the imaginative consistency that made Pirináci's book such a tour de force.

Pub Date: April 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-312-08886-8

Page Count: 384

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.