Welsh, Scotland's brightest young literary rebel (The Acid House, stories, p. 181), weighs in with a technically dazzling and emotionally wrenching portrait of working-class youth wasted in an emotional vacuum. Roy Strang, in his early 20s, enters the story in a coma and leaves it in even worse shape. In between, he recounts his wretched childhood in an Edinburgh housing project, introduces us to his horrific parents and abject siblings (a thug, a slut, and a homosexual), and describes his own unfortunate appearance (his ears stick out; and the family dog mauled him as a kid, leaving him with a lifelong limp). Matters get briefly sunnier when Roy's father, who loathes the sorry state of Scotland, drags the family to South Africa, where the 11-year-old Roy romps in a right-wing paradise amid a pedophilic uncle and numerous species of exotic birds, including the marabou stork, a freakish creature that preys on defenseless flamingoes. Welsh knows a writer's metaphor when he sees one, and it's this—the marabou stork—that Roy will come back, in his fevered coma nightmares, to hunt. With great agility, Welsh manages his slippery, three-pronged story as he traces the teenage Roy's return to Scotland, at the same time continuing with the surreal, ongoing pursuit of the marabou stork—a tale that the author tells in the manner of a mock-colonial narrative. In Scotland, Roy grows up to become a fair computer systems analyst and a superb soccer-gang brawler, but he loses stomach for his aimless life after joining his mates in the gang rape of a club girl. Miraculously, the rapists are found innocent, but by then Roy's had enough of Scotland: He moves to Manchester and discovers salvation in rave culture. It can't last, though, particularly with the rape victim setting out to exact grisly revenge . . . . Welsh's grasp of the grim beauty that lurks in his characters' shattered yearnings is even more solid than his ear for their savage dialect. Magical, without a hint of cloying sentiment. (First serial to Grand Street)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-03845-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
