BUFFALO BOY AND GERONIMO

Name: BUFFALO BOY AND GERONIMO
Author: James Janko
ISBN: 1-931896-19-4

by James Janko ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2006

An anti-war novel certainly, but very much its own kind. Pervasively melancholy, folkloric in approach, it’s sustained by...

bookshelf

A beautifully written first novel about the ugliness of war—in Vietnam and anywhere else.

It’s 1970, and circumstances surrounding the life of 14-year-old Mong, Buffalo Boy, are harrowing, a consequence of the lethal attention emanating from Cu Chi, the main base of the 25th Infantry Division. Whether from the air (saturation bombing) or on the ground (napalm attacks), there has been destruction enough to cost Mong his father; in fact, no one in his village has escaped grievous loss. And yet, Mong, astride his buffalo Great Joy, feels empowered, transcending a reality composed of “scarred earth, of green rice fields burned, of trees and huts burned, ravaged.” Moreover, Mong has managed to fall in love—with Thien, also 14, whose breasts and hips fill his imagination with poetry. In the 25th Division, there’s another boy, only slightly older, Antonio Lucio Conchola, who calls himself Geronimo, a talismanic name from which he derives a sense of invulnerability. Geronimo has poetry in him, too, but war and killing have made him unnervingly strange, a condition that alienates him from his comrades. In that half-mad state, he has an almost otherworldly encounter with a tiger, perceiving the great beast as Blake did—burning bright. As a result, he decides that his only sensible course is to resign from the war, permanently. He wanders away from his platoon, eventually to be taken prisoner by Mongo. It’s an odd captivity, noticeably deficient in malice or enmity. It is as if, across the cultural and racial divide, the boys have somehow achieved an iota of affinity.

An anti-war novel certainly, but very much its own kind. Pervasively melancholy, folkloric in approach, it’s sustained by prose that is often lyrical, though never self-conscious.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2006

ISBN: 1-931896-19-4

Page Count: 124

Publisher: Curbstone Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

THE BOATMAN'S DAUGHTER

by Andy Davidson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 11, 2020

A stunning supernatural Southern gothic.

bookshelf

The remote Arkansas bayou is a swirling kaleidoscope of murder, greed, and dark, ancient magic in Bram Stoker Award finalist Davidson’s second novel (In the Valley of the Sun, 2017).

The rotting Holy Day Church and Sabbath House, where the preacher Billy Cotton held his congregants in his thrall, serves as a painful reminder to 21-year-old Miranda Crabtree of the night 10 years ago when she and her father, Hiram, the boatman, took the midwife (and witch) Iskra there to deliver Cotton's son. As soon as Cotton laid eyes on the infant’s mottled, scaly skin and webbed hands, he called him an abomination and tried to kill him. Iskra had other ideas, and the baby, whom Miranda called Littlefish, survived. But Hiram disappeared that night, and she’s since dreamed of finding his body (because he’s surely dead) and laying him to rest. It's Miranda’s love for the mute, goodhearted Littlefish that has kept her going, and with Iskra's help, she's spent years running her father's general store and eventually running dope for Cotton and his cruel and corrupt deputy, Charlie Riddle, to make ends meet. Now, Billy Cotton’s kingdom has crumbled around him and his body is riddled with cancer. Before dying, he’s desperate to appease the angry ghost of his wife, who died in childbirth, but he’ll need a sacrifice. On Miranda’s last run for Riddle, she’s ordered to deliver a young girl to Cotton, which she’s not about to do even though she knows her refusal will start a war she might not survive. But she’s ready, and the time for a reckoning has come. Davidson’s captivating horror fable combines the visceral violence of Cormac McCarthy with his own wholly original craftsmanship, weaving rich, folkloric magic with the best elements of a gritty Southern thriller. The book's lightning-fast pace doesn’t come at the expense of fully realized, flawed, and achingly human characters. Ample bloodshed is offset by beautiful prose, and the bad guys are really, really bad. Luckily, Miranda, a young woman forged in hardship and grief and buoyed by her love of a very special child, is a perfect foil for the evil she’ll have to face.

A stunning supernatural Southern gothic.

Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-374-53855-2

Page Count: 416

Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

THE KITCHEN GOD'S WIFE

by Amy Tan ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 27, 1991

bookshelf

Worthy of the acclaim given The Joy Luck Club, Tan's engrossing second novel about Chinese-American culture continues the author's intricate exploration of mother-daughter relationships, generational differences, and the key way secrets define them. Pearl, herself the mother of two girls, has not yet told her mother Winnie what she has known for a while—that she has multiple sclerosis (their relationship has been strained ever since Pearl's father died when she was 14). Aunt Helen, who knows Pearl's "secret," threatens to tell Pearl's mother if Pearl won't do it herself. Helen then makes the same threat to Winnie—reveal her secret past to her daughter or Helen will. So Winnie sits down and tells Pearl the story of her life before coming to America and before her marriage to the man Pearl thinks is her father—a life of hell spent with a deeply disturbed, sadistic first husband, Pearl's real father. It is a life that encapsulates a strong belief in fate and luck and, unfortunately, the oppressed role of women in Chinese culture—one that continually summons up the image of the title: a symbol of the wronged but ever-forgiving wife. In the sheer power of conveying Winnie's secret life in China, Tan once again demonstrates her truly gifted storytelling ability. (Pearl is a less interesting character, but then again so is life in contemporary California.) One can only admire Tan's talent for capturing and synthesizing the complex cultural dynamics at work here and turning them into such an intriguing, harrowing tale.