It's business as usual in Carroll's (Mortal Friends, 1978, etc.) newest historical saga as intrigue, ordeals, and passion abound in a compelling story of two brothers who rise from the dirty streets of Charlestown to Boston's circles of power. Terry and Nick (Squire) Doyle grew up in a small apartment above their grandfather's Charlestown flower shop in the shadow of Bunker Hill. Irish and Catholic to the core, the boys were one another's better halves until fate and their own driven natures warped their destinies. Both brothers achieve wealth and political influence, one at the expense of his honor, the other at the expense of his life. Terry renounces the call of priesthood to join Ted Kennedy's political team and to participate in the shady real estate developments that marked Boston in the 1980s. Nick dutifully takes over the flower shop but uses it as a front for his dealings with a mafioso's money-laundering and extortion operation. Violent racial conflict pervades this novel, first among the Italian and Irish thugs fighting for commercial control of Boston, and later among the Irish and blacks, who clash over Boston's busing discord of the 1970s. Betrayal is another dominant theme here: Squire misuses and eventually murders his brother-in-law; Terry's first girlfriend marries Squire; Squire sleeps with and impregnates Terry's wife; Squire bribes Terry's best friend and implicates and nearly ruins Terry in his nefarious mafia machinations. Carroll combines Boston's familiar turf and his staple historical personae—the Kennedys and Cardinal Cushing among them- -with a vibrant new cast of characters. The writing is dependable throughout (its strength being the dialogue), while the plotting offers spectacular twists, a breakneck pace, and a startling ending. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 12, 1994
ISBN: 0-395-59070-1
Page Count: 422
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
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.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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