Historically and politically compelling, yet the three-soul plot device is contrived.
Revolutionary and domestic politics collide in this tale of a woman’s ghost attempting to understand her life decisions and make amends for her transgressions.
Set against the Chinese civil war, Chang’s debut novel explores the frustrations of intelligent women valued only for beauty and obedience. A young woman’s consciousness awakens at her own funeral, surrounded by her three souls: her yin, manifesting as a dancing schoolgirl; her yang, manifesting as an elderly scholar; and her han, manifesting as a silhouette of light. Until she can remember her sins, she cannot ascend to the afterlife and reincarnation; she runs the risk of becoming a hungry ghost, roaming the Earth for eternity. To help her remember, Song Leiyin’s souls make her watch her own life unfold again, beginning with the evening of her sister’s engagement party, the night she met Yen Hanchin. Born into a traditional and prosperous family, the three Song daughters realize their dreams are circumscribed. Leiyin’s eldest sister, Gaoyin, already married, worries that if she doesn’t conceive a child soon, her husband will take a concubine. Leiyin’s second sister, Sueyin, is betrothed to a well-connected young man far more interested in opium than the business world. Leiyin’s eldest brother, Changyin, waits in the wings to become the family patriarch, while her second brother, Tongyin, squanders his educational opportunities at college to drink and mingle with friends. Leiyin herself longs to continue school, to become a teacher, to make a difference in China. When she meets Hanchin—poet, translator and political agitator—Leiyin’s aspirations gain a romantic edge. Her plans to escape her father’s oppressive household, however, quickly land her in an unexpected marriage. Still, her ambitions and her desire for Hanchin simmer, waiting for a startlingly tragic opportunity. Now, her ghost must find a way to repair the damage wrought.
Historically and politically compelling, yet the three-soul plot device is contrived.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-229319-0
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
A thriller with an intellectual bent, Golden's latest effort ruminates on the nature and existence of good and evil while...
Far up on Turkey's Mount Ararat, buried within it like a cave, explorers discover the remains of a ship they think may be Noah's Ark. After they open an odd sarcophaguslike container and mess around with the horned cadaver inside, evil happens.
Unafraid of ascending Ararat, with its threat of storms and avalanches and altitudinal challenges, Adam Holzer and his fiancee, Meryam Karga, take on the mountain with plans of co-writing another of their exploring bestsellers and shooting a documentary. From the start, there are tensions between the couple and among their multinational, multiethnic crew. One biblical scholar, a priest, is in favor of opening the coffin and finding "the greatest connection to biblical history we have ever found." Another scholar insists that "some things are better left buried." And then there's Ben Walker from the National Science Foundation, who hopes the 5,000-year-old cadaver proves to be an actual demon to “confirm the existence of God." It's not a good sign when people start disappearing. Things get even hairier when certain expeditioners start acting like they are possessed—which, in fact, they are. When a blizzard does, indeed, trap everyone in the cave, heightening their paranoia, they struggle as much for sanity as survival. Likely inspired by the claustrophobic film thriller The Thing, Golden (Dead Ringers, 2015, etc.) tightens the screws slowly but surely. While there are times the participants succumb to a group mania reminiscent of another film, The Poseidon Adventure, the book mostly works in an eerier and subtler manner.
A thriller with an intellectual bent, Golden's latest effort ruminates on the nature and existence of good and evil while providing the chills and tingles fans of this prolific author have come to expect.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-11705-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Despite thrillingly beautiful sentences, Beukes’ considerable imaginative powers seem wasted in this shallow, often ugly...
Beukes carries her experimentation in science fiction (Moxyland, 2010) and fantasy (Zoo City, 2010) to very dark corners as she follows a time-traveling serial killer who preys on young Chicago women from the 1930s until the 1990s.
In 1974, a little girl named Kirby takes a toy pony from a strange man in his 30s named Harper. In 1931, Harper, a tramp no older or younger than in 1974, hears and follows mysterious music to a boarded-up tenement and opens the front door with a key he has found in the pocket of a coat he stole earlier that night. Inside the house, which is elegantly furnished, is a man’s dead body. On the bedroom wall are the names of girls possessing a special glow that he must extinguish (and his first victim is a young showgirl with a literal glow about her from the radium she uses in her act). Each time Harper leaves his house, he can travel in time. He marks his victims first by giving them small gifts, then returns years later to kill them. And he returns again and again to 1931. Because of his ability to travel in and out of the 60-year time frame, he avoids suspicion. But there are glitches. In 1951, the transgender showgirl he met in 1940 kills herself before he can kill her. In 1993, an artist turned crack addict has already lost her shine by the time he strikes. And Kirby, whom Harper assumes he has killed in 1989, has managed to survive. By 1993, when Harper’s pace has sped up, Kirby is a student intern for attractive, middle-aged newspaper reporter Dan, who covered the story of her attack. Tracking her assailant, Kirby begins to suspect the bizarre nature of Harper’s vicious killing spree.
Despite thrillingly beautiful sentences, Beukes’ considerable imaginative powers seem wasted in this shallow, often ugly game of cat and mouse tarted up with supernatural elements that do not bear too much scrutiny.Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-21685-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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