A dense and florid pseudo-philosophical novel, poked into a comparatively neat and bleakly jarring sci-fi frame: four American neo-luminaries, one young stowaway, and a pregnant Iranian (along with some barely-glimpsed others) are encapsulated in a Star Trek-type space vehicle on its way to an American space station. Lift-off, however, will not occur for some time—not until after what seem like light years of background on the major passengers. There's industrialist Jack Mulenberg, for whom "this trip is transportation like any other. . . he expects to be delivered." Mulenberg desperately craves black journalist Veronica Oliphant, whose "ebony oval" of a head "contains a brain of worth. . . which still has its own purpose, undefined." And Veronica has been married (falsely, it seems) to passenger Wolf Lievering-Cohen—a "tortured archangel" who is treated to some of Calisher's wooziest prose: "His innocence. . . wasn't childish but desert dry, absolute. Fatality had picked him clean." There's also William Wert, an old-style diplomat married to two Iranian women, both named Soraya, one of whom is aboard. Plus: young "Mole" Perdue, whose father betrayed this mission, and whom Mole will betray in turn; and Tom Gilpin, a philosopher lobbying for "the people of earth." Calisher follows each of these people—in past and present—through whorls of obscuring, portentous, glutinous verbiage, strangling the life out of the major characters. The story-lines are only dimly visible: Veronica's travels and lovers, and a bomb-ticking parting from a half-brother; Wert's acquisition of his wives, a legacy from an ancient Iranian potentate; Gilpin's paddling through vast seas of thought; an assassination and diplomatic palaver. Only the spaceship comes intermittently alive here—a scramble of missed signals, a surreal telecast of chatting anchormen from Earth, a cornucopia of eerie vistas and grimly humorous gadgetry. The rest, unfortunately is, like Calisher's other recent fiction, a pretentious morass of talking heads and overbearing prose.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1983
ISBN: 0385184069
Page Count: 534
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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