A novel about a remote indigenous town with an intriguing premise but uneven execution.
A young Native American man prepares for a future outside his small community in Campbell’s debut novel.
In the town of Reflection Lake, John is intent on finishing 12th grade, but up to this point, he’s been taking correspondence high school classes. His teachers have told him that he should go to the school in the town of Hope Bay, but his grandfather, Extol Bear, has advised against it because of that school’s history of discrimination. Luckily, it turns out that Reflection Lake’s high school will have teachers this year, and there’s even talk of bringing in a portable science lab. Extol is wary, however, because he once sent John’s father to a residential school that was hostile to Native American culture: “We have heard pleasant words before. They can change overnight.” The school receives a government grant, which enables the students to put on a play. John co-writes and narrates it, which makes him feel even more connected to his community. But although he earns a living as a tourist guide, he’s toying with applying to a university far away. Suddenly, a massive fire encroaches on Reflection Lake, and John and others race to fight it; soon, the young man’s future hangs in the balance. Campbell’s concise novel touches on some cultural issues of lingering importance, including the former practice of forcibly sending young Native Americans to white-run boarding schools. The culture-eradicating practices of the past still weigh heavily on John’s decision-making process in the present day, and Campbell’s portrayal of how memories haunt Extol is powerful. The action scenes during the fire and along the river are also consistently exciting. However, the rest of the narrative doesn’t feel as well-developed; the overall plot isn’t especially strong, and there are a number of scenes that either feel unnecessary or too short.
A novel about a remote indigenous town with an intriguing premise but uneven execution.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5255-3167-5
Page Count: 162
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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