worth packing for the next campaign.
McCourt’s latest potboiler cuts an uneven swath through the nation’s capital, lovingly portrayed (in the sharpest Hogarthian
lines) as a nest of social climbers, criminals, homosexuals, mafiosi, religious fanatics, black supremacists, and politicians. We’ve met Danny Delancey and many of his friends before (Time Remaining, 1993, etc.). A reporter for the East Hampton Star (Long Island’s toniest local paper), Delancey is an inveterate survivor who grew up on the Lower East Side, went off to a Christian Brothers boarding school, and came out in Greenwich Village (during the pre-AIDS bacchanal of the 1970s, no less)—and lives to tell the tale. Now, in early middle age, he leads a somewhat more sedate life on the eastern edge of Long Island, but he can still rise to the occasion when adventure beckons. This particular adventure, however, doesn’t look particularly wild at first: It begins when Delancey is assigned to cover the congressional debate over a new environmental bill. Once inside the District, though, Delancey finds himself in a world as foreign and malign to him as the plains of Kansas would be to Kurt Weill. The president, a Bill Clinton look-alike known as POTUS, is something of a local joke, but Delancey soon finds himself sniffing out what seems to be the scent of some vast conspiracy against the man—and not just against his politics, either. Is an assassination plot hatching? Delancey has the advantage of being an outsider who can ask questions without arousing suspicion, and he also has an array of friends—gay porn star Rain, Georgetown society hostess Bam-Bam, opera diva Vana Sprezza—who can open doors that most journalists don’t even know how to find in broad daylight. But intelligence is only half the equation: Can Delancey tell the tale? Judge for yourself. A bit hyperactive even for a thriller, but McCourt’s narrative has a nice satiric edge and an air of credibility that make it
worth packing for the next campaign.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-40311-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2000
A fable about the consolatory and strengthening powers of religion flounders about somewhere inside this unconventional coming-of-age tale, which was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Award. The story is told in retrospect by Piscine Molitor Patel (named for a swimming pool, thereafter fortuitously nicknamed “Pi”), years after he was shipwrecked when his parents, who owned a zoo in India, were attempting to emigrate, with their menagerie, to Canada. During 227 days at sea spent in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger (mostly with the latter, which had efficiently slaughtered its fellow beasts), Pi found serenity and courage in his faith: a frequently reiterated amalgam of Muslim, Hindu, and Christian beliefs. The story of his later life, education, and mission rounds out, but does not improve upon, the alternately suspenseful and whimsical account of Pi’s ordeal at sea—which offers the best reason for reading this otherwise preachy and somewhat redundant story of his Life.
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-100811-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This novel began as a reworking of W.W. Jacobs' horror classic "The Monkey's Paw"—a short story about the dreadful outcome when a father wishes for his dead son's resurrection. And King's 400-page version reads, in fact, like a monstrously padded short story, moving so slowly that every plot-turn becomes lumberingly predictable. Still, readers with a taste for the morbid and ghoulish will find unlimited dark, mortality-obsessed atmosphere here—as Dr. Louis Creed arrives in Maine with wife Rachel and their two little kids Ellie and Gage, moving into a semi-rural house not far from the "Pet Sematary": a spot in the woods where local kids have been burying their pets for decades. Louis, 35, finds a great new friend/father-figure in elderly neighbor Jud Crandall; he begins work as director of the local university health-services. But Louis is oppressed by thoughts of death—especially after a dying student whispers something about the pet cemetery, then reappears in a dream (but is it a dream) to lead Louis into those woods during the middle of the night. What is the secret of the Pet Sematary? Well, eventually old Jud gives Louis a lecture/tour of the Pet Sematary's "annex"—an old Micmac burying ground where pets have been buried. . .and then reappeared alive! So, when little Ellie's beloved cat Church is run over (while Ellie's visiting grandfolks), Louis and Jud bury it in the annex—resulting in a faintly nasty resurrection: Church reappears, now with a foul smell and a creepy demeanor. But: what would happen if a human corpse were buried there? That's the question when Louis' little son Gage is promptly killed in an accident. Will grieving father Louis dig up his son's body from the normal graveyard and replant it in the Pet Sematary? What about the stories of a previous similar attempt—when dead Timmy Baterman was "transformed into some sort of all-knowing daemon?" Will Gage return to the living—but as "a thing of evil?" He will indeed, spouting obscenities and committing murder. . .before Louis must eliminate this child-demon he has unleashed. Filled out with overdone family melodrama (the feud between Louis and his father-in-law) and repetitious inner monologues: a broody horror tale that's strong on dark, depressing chills, weak on suspense or surprise—and not likely to please the fans of King's zestier, livelier terror-thons.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1983
ISBN: 0743412281
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1983
BOOK TO SCREEN
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