Unrequited and misdirected loves are the ruefully comic matter of this sprightly seventh novel from the author of such inspired farces as Modern Baptists (1983) and Sort of Rich (1989). As often before, it’s a denizen of Wilcox’s likably deranged fictional hamlet of Tula Springs, Louisiana, who holds center stage. He’s 40ish (Severinus) Lloyd Norris, now a New Yorker, working as a computer programmer for a company that manufactures labels for “personal care products.” That’s only a minor eccentricity in a narrative merrily aboil with them. You see, Lloyd, who’s recently divorced from his old schoolmate Pearl Fay (whom he married when a football player made her pregnant), has realized he’s gay. This is of no great consequence to his ex (who urges him to find a boyfriend), Lloyd’s macho boss, his aggressively motherly secretary, and the dozen or so others brought together by Lloyd’s volunteer work for “Manhattan Cares” and his timid gropings toward a sex life (“all he did in the privacy of his bedroom was eat Fritos and sleep”). Lloyd is a charmingly winsome character, but his distant acquaintances (such as a depressed widower and his estranged octogenarian roommate), whose stories Wilcox pursues in skimpy counterpoint-narratives, never really hold our interest. The novel works best as a collection of riffs on sexual insanity (while permitting a female —airhead” model to share his apartment, Lloyd must deal with ugly rumors alleging he’s not gay), with some delicious incidental comedy (e.g., Pearl Fay botches a suicide attempt by swallowing a handful of vitamin C tablets). Wilcox ends it all with a series of pairings and reconciliations that do tie up loose ends, but also have the surely unintended effect of emphasizing his story’s narrative unevenness and chaotic structure. Almost as much of a mess as Lloyd Norris’s modestly frenetic pursuit of happiness and normality. Fortunately, it’s also very often almost as endearing and entertaining.
Pub Date: Sept. 3, 1998
ISBN: 0-316-94026-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1998
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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