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CAREER IN C MAJOR AND OTHER FICTION

Name: CAREER IN C MAJOR AND OTHER FICTION
Author: James M. Cain
ISBN: 0070095930

by James M. Cain edited by Roy Hoopes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1986

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Dedicated to revealing and preserving the human side of one of the preeminent tough guy writers of the 1930's, this volume brings together humorous short stories, satiric playlets, but only one work of distinctive (if very modest) quality: the comic novella Career in C Major, which originally appeared in hard-cover in 1943, then in a 1944 collection (Three of a Kind)—but was first sold to the movies. Made first as Wife, Husband and Friend (1939) and a decade later as Everybody Does It, the charming story involves a stage-struck wife who is content enough putting up with her husband's lack of success—but can't deal with his out-of-the-blue triumphs as a singer. Elsewhere, in labored sendups of politicians (The Governor, The Commissioners, etc.) and in Runyonesque tales of Hollywood comebacks and carnival hustlers, the comedy is dated, usually limp, only faintly amusing at best. In contrast to this work of the 1930's, however (much of it published in Redbook), The Visitor—written in 1961, published in Esquire—is briefer, crisper, less effortful: all about what happens when a man wakes one morning to find a tiger by his bed. Very minor work by a minor master, then, more for Cain scholars than general readers—with solid introductory materials by Cain biographer Roy Hoopes.

Pub Date: June 1, 1986

ISBN: 0070095930

Page Count: 287

Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Review Posted Online: March 22, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1986

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
A WATERGATE TAPE
by Roy Hoopes

- BOOK REVIEW
WHEN THE STARS WENT TO WAR
by Roy Hoopes

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BABY IN THE ICEBOX
by James M. Cain edited by Roy Hoopes

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

- SEEN & HEARD
The Snowy Day Is NYC Library’s Most Popular Book

- SEEN & HEARD
ALA Releases List of 2020’s Most Challenged Books

- SEEN & HEARD
NYT Readers Voting on Best Book of Past 125 Years

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.