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 best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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